


The Lich

by Dangereux



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Creepy creeps, F/F, Halloween, the halloween spectacular no one asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:02:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 48,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27236200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dangereux/pseuds/Dangereux
Summary: Gay disaster Emma, exasperated Regina, and a monster. A Halloween special.
Relationships: Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Emma Swan
Comments: 71
Kudos: 139
Collections: Aleatório





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This has been languishing on my hard drive since 2016, and if ever we needed a silly, spooky escape from life, it's right now, so here it is. 
> 
> If you notice that it looks like I've stolen ideas from Neil Gaiman, Shirley Jackson, and HP Lovecraft, it's because I did. Here's hoping it's a good balance of creepy and feelingsy. 
> 
> Enjoy, stay safe, and have a Happy Halloween. 
> 
> PS I haven't watched this show in years so there's probably one million inaccuracies, don't @ me

No one ever remembers exactly where it came from.

It looks old, in a nondescript sort of way. Because of that it’s always assumed to have been passed down from some relation or other. Regardless, its presence is rarely questioned and never suspected in any of the houses it appears in. It has the threadbare appearance of an item well-loved, the implication of generations of tiny, innocent hands touching the fabric making it look soft and worn. One of the black button eyes appears to have been replaced with care, though unfortunately it doesn’t quite match with the original. Its black hat has lost the felt completely, leaving it a dull brown that matches with the worn corduroy of its smart little jacket and pants.

Still, for all its appearance of innocence, there is something not quite right about it. There are few adults who can look upon it without feeling some distant sense of unease. It gives off an eerie stillness, some inexplicable sense of suspense, as though it’s always just about to  _ do _ something. Its red mouth, stitched with a fine crimson thread that has yet to fade, grins just a little too widely. Its mismatched eyes stare back - just a little too hard. It’s the kind of toy that you might just turn to face away from you while you sleep. And yet, for all that, it’s the kind of toy you can never quite bring yourself to get rid of. It’s probably an antique, maybe even worth something. Better off tucked away at the bottom of the toy chest, or in the back of the closet, until there’s time to get it appraised.

It never seems to mind.

It sits there in the darkness, next to the broken tennis racket and the musty stack of books, with its too-wide grin and its glittering, button eyes.

And it waits.

It can wait forever.

* * *

“Admit it Regina, you’re bored.”

“I am no such thing.”

“ _ Really.” _

“I believe that is what I just said, yes.”

“Then why do you suddenly have time to have lunch with me in the middle of the work day?” I ask, chomping down on a fry as if to prove my point. She wrinkles her nose in distaste in that way that I love, her top lip curling a little. I know she’s trying to pretend that I annoy her, that my crappy manners and terrible posture are all just so  _ trying _ to Her Royal Highness with that stick up her ass, but she doesn’t even come close to pulling it off anymore. Kind of hard for her to act like she doesn’t enjoy my company when she was the one that asked me to meet up in the first place.

She takes a dainty sip of water, the cool October sunlight filtering through her dark hair, before replying curtly. “Because everyone needs to have lunch.” I roll my eyes and do my best to keep a shit-eating grin off my face. We’ve been friends for a while now, how long exactly I can’t say, I guess it just creeped up on me. But I know she needs this, needs to keep the pretense, and so I let her get away with it. At this point, there’s not a hell of a lot I  _ don’t  _ let her get away with. Probably because I am pretty pathetically into her, on top of all the friendship stuff. But since she can barely handle acknowledging that she wants to have lunch with me, I’m gonna go ahead and keep that one to myself. 

Forever.

“Right, yeah, of course,” I reply wryly. I shift in my seat, the cracking, cheap pleather of Granny’s booth squeaking slightly under my weight as I reach my leg out and kick her ankle gently under the table. She scowls, but I can see her eyes glittering playfully as she swipes my foot with hers. I force down the disgusting, melting lava feelings the whole exchange produces and take a sip of water to gather myself. So pathetic. 

“Hey, Moms!” Henry’s voice cuts through the moment and we both turn to see him trotting up to the booth, cramming into the seat next to me. I grunt pointedly and shift over, ruffling his hair. He smells like crisp, fall sunshine and candy-apples, his stupidly adorable freckles melting me in a different but no less devastating way than his mother.

“What are you doing out of school, young man?” Regina asks, an eyebrow raising menacingly. 

“It’s a half-day!” he says in protest, eyes cutting to me with accusation. Fuck. Right. I was supposed to tell her that. 

“Yeah, Regina, a half-day, remember?” I ask, reaching out for the pickle on her plate. 

“Hmm, it seems it must have slipped my mind,” she says, eyes narrowing as she dramatically skewers the pickle with her fork.

“Jesus,” I mutter, snatching my hand back. She’s still glaring at me, but we’d kind of made a promise we wouldn’t fight with each other in front of Henry anymore, so I throw a lazy arm around him and raise my eyebrows in a dare.

She looks like she might actually incinerate me with one of her famous fire balls for a moment, but Henry starts chattering about his schoolwork and she eventually gets distracted. Her face transforms into that soft, open look she only gets in the presence of Henry, and my stomach starts to do a really impressive attempt at leaping out of my body at the sight of it. ‘’So how was your lunch?’’ Henry asks, glancing from Regina to me. 

“It was nice, darling,” she replies warmly. “Your mother was just complaining that nothing has tried to raze the town with fire and brimstone lately, and I was listening politely.”

“All I said was that I was bored, and that you must be too.  _ Nothing _ has happened lately. I’m a sheriff!” I throw my hands up in frustration. “I need to…sheriff something." Regina rolls her eyes heavenward, her pale throat exposed for a moment that has my eyes lingering. “Last week Granny called me to get her cat out of the tree, and I’m like 75% sure she just put it up there because she felt sorry for me and wanted to give me something to do.”

Regina lets out a soft snort at that, one of the precious few non-regal things she has the habit of doing, and my traitorous stomach makes another attempt to lurch from my body. “Well, I for one am quite content with a little peace and quiet for the time being.”

“Me too,” Henry adds. “I’m never going to make it to the fifth grade if we keep having to shut down the school to battle a monster.”

“Good point, kid,” I reply, squeezing him affectionately. “I’ll just learn to knit or something. It will be great. You can wear all my creations to school, make the other kids jealous.”

Henry eyes me warily, Regina and I exchanging an amused glance from across the table. “Yeah,” he replies noncommittally. ”Hey can we go down to the marina? Hook just got in today from his trip, and he promised me he’d bring me something back!”

Regina meets my eyes again, though this time with a more wary look on her face. One thing we both agree on is that we don’t really love Henry’s newfound friendship with, as Regina calls him,  _ that damned pirate.  _ It’s not just the poorly-executed eyeliner or the fact that he’s a bit of a lush, but also the skeevy way he looks at me all the time that makes us both less than eager to hang around him. Still though, Henry likes him, and the kid hasn’t had the easiest few years. “Sure,” I nod, trying my best to smile. “You have time to come with, Madam Mayor?” I ask Regina with feigned innocence. “I mean, I know you said that you’re not bored, there’s probably so much going on at City Hall right now, so we understand if you can’t take time out of your busy schedule -” 

“Emma,” Regina interrupts, primly folding her napkin and looking at me with a serene smile. “Shut up.”

* * *

“What in the  _ hell  _ is that thing?”

My voice cuts across the deck of Hook’s ship and the pirate looks up to me with a pleased smile. I’ve managed to avoid his attention since we stepped on board the  _ Jolly Roger,  _ Henry chattering to him excitedly as Regina leans against the railing answering work emails on her phone and looking annoyingly beautiful _.  _ The deck swaying under my feet is reminding me of my rather shitty experience aboard this ship on that godawful trip to Neverland, and I’ve mostly been hanging by the gangplank so I can get the hell off this boat as soon as possible. That is, until I see what Henry is holding in his hands. I stride across the deck, chilly air biting at my skin, to get a closer look because even though it’s super fucking creepy looking, I’m also kind of drawn to it. 

“Ah yes, I got that during my trip to the Forbidden Isles. Curious little thing, isn’t it?” Hook smiles, sauntering closer to me. 

It’s a doll. I mean - not a doll but kind of like one, I guess. It’s got this creepy corduroy suit on, and has odd button eyes like something out of a horror movie. I can’t believe Henry even wants to look at the thing, let alone hold it. “It looks like it wants to eat my soul or something,” I say with a shiver. I swear to god even though it hasn’t moved, I can practically feel it listening.

“A little dramatic, wouldn’t you say, Swan?” Hook asks, eyeing me with amusement. 

“We’ll see,” I answer defensively. I look at it again and it’s like everything goes still, the world fading away, my mind quiet. My vision focuses on it even more intensely. I can hear the distant sound of seagulls, waves crashing against the hull of the ship, I can feel the briny air pulling at my hair, but it’s all far away. Unimportant. I take a breath and snap back to the present as the sounds rush back to my ears, blinking away the confusion. “Anyway, Henry, aren’t you a little old to be playing with dolls?”

Hook frowns, swiping the toy out of Henry’s hands. “Well, it’s very old you know. The woman that gave it to me said that it was much older even than it looked. She said it brings good luck to those who possess it. But…” he trails off, watching Henry out of the corner of his eyelinered eye. “If the boy doesn’t want it, it’s just as well. I could use some good luck in certain areas of my life,” he says with a knowing wink.

“No, I want it!” Henry pipes up, holding his hands out demandingly.

“You’re sure, young Mills?” Hook asks, but he’s looking at me when he says it. I scoff under my breath. If he thinks he can somehow get close to me through my kid, he can shove that hook right up his - 

“Yes I’m sure! I’m sure,” Henry says hurriedly. “I need some good luck too,” he adds, eyeing me and then Regina with something I like to call his “plotting face.” That is not a good face. It usually means he’s up to shit that I end up paying for. “With school,” Henry explains. Clearly he hasn’t missed that both of his mothers are eyeing him suspiciously now, Regina walking up beside me to see what the fuss is about.

Hook hands the doll back to Henry who takes it gently in his hands, cradling it in a way that makes it more alive somehow. Like it has weight to it that it didn’t have before, muscle and bone instead of stuffing. Ugh, I am seriously tempted to just throw the thing overboard and take the heat from everyone. But I can see Henry likes it, and he deserves something good. Even if it is some demon doll. “Thank you,” Henry says to Hook, though he’s still looking at the toy in his arms. His voice sounds distant. 

I feel uneasy, and as usual when I feel like things are off I look to Regina. She doesn’t seem concerned, but she’s a little more focused on the lingering look I’m currently getting from Hook. “Come along now, Henry,” she says brusquely. “Collect your treasures, I think we’ve taken up quite enough of the pirate’s time. And you have homework to do.” 

Henry agrees with surprisingly little protest, thanking Hook distractedly as I start to usher him off the ship. “Swan, you’re welcome to stay if you’d like,” Hook offers. “I have some wine I’ve brought back from my journeys I’m sure you’d appreciate. Very excellent vintages.”

“She can’t,” Regina says quickly, curling her fingers around my bicep in a possessive manner that has my eyebrows raising. I can feel her sharp nails even through the leather of my jacket. “She’s having dinner with us tonight. Just the family.” She’s started using that phrase more often and I can’t tell if she knows what it does to me. I get all weak-kneed and disgusting and melty, which is exactly what I’m doing now as I feel her hand steering me toward the gangplank.

“Right, well, anytime you want to drop by, Swan,” Hook calls to our retreating backs.

“Yes, dear, anytime you decide you’ve completely lost your wits,” Regina mutters under her breath. 

I laugh with surprise at her dry humor, I like that she’s relaxed enough that she feels like she can joke around with me, even if it’s usually at my expense. “So am I actually coming to dinner or was that your attempt at rescuing me? It’s two in the afternoon, by the way, I’m not even sure why that worked.”

“It worked because he’s an utter fool that has no interest in anything other than your chest, which while understandable, is no excuse for his behaviour,” she replies stiffly, digging her keys from her purse. 

I gape at her, my eyes bugging from my head. Did she just comment on my  _ chest?  _ But that would mean she had been looking at my chest. And thinking about it. The word “understandable” echoes in my head as my brain tries to figure out what the hell is happening. Regina clearly also realizes what she just said, because she clears her throat sharply and asks in a brusque voice, “Would you like a ride back to the station?”

I blink for a moment, forcing myself to, you know, say words. Anyway, I guess that answers my dinner question. It would probably be too much to ask for considering she already invited me out to lunch, and maybe accidentally told me she thinks I’m hot. “Oh, no, I’m good I think I’ll walk, thanks.” Definitely gonna need a long walk to process the last sixty seconds of my life.

She nods without looking at me, cheeks maybe a little pink as she shuffles Henry to the car, already bargaining with him about homework as she opens the back seat. “If you sit in my office quietly and complete your book report you get one hour of playstation and not a second more.”

“But  _ Mom,”  _ Henry argues, hauling himself into the seat.

I shake my head with a smile at their familiar bickering and turn before I get sucked in to mediate. “Oh, and Emma?” Regina calls. Too late. I turn around, trying not to look too mesmerized by the sight of Regina backlit by the autumn sun, pushing her hair out of her eyes. 

“Yeah?” I answer, jamming my hands in my pockets.

She smiles softly over the top of the car in a way that is so completely devastating I’m not sure how I’m still standing.

“Dinner is at six.”

* * *

“Does that thing have to eat every meal with us?”

“Ma, how’s it supposed to give me good luck powers all the way from my room?”

Henry scowls at me from across the dinner table where he has his gift from Hook propped against the salad bowl, and it’s seriously affecting my appetite. It’s been over a week since Hook gave him the thing and the kid has started carting it everywhere, something I am definitely not that happy about. 

Regina sets a steaming casserole dish of lasagna on the table. “Are you two arguing about that doll again?”

“No,” we both reply in unison. Henry and I exchange a secret smile, and Regina rolls her eyes.

“Good, because I’d hate to have to take it away. Next time leave it in your room please Henry, the dinner table isn’t the place for toys.” An oddly dark look passes across the kid’s face before he nods obediently.

“Sure, Mom.”

“Thank you, dear,” Regina sighs, sitting down next to me. “I appreciate your maturity on the matter.” She starts to slice the lasagna with a knife and my mouth is already watering. “I know it must be confusing for you how a grown woman - and the Savior no less - could be afraid of a toy, so I admire your understanding,” she adds dryly.

“I’m not  _ afraid  _ of it. I hate it,” I clarify, doing my best not to wolf down the lasagna Regina passes me. 

“Yes, as you’ve mentioned,” she arches an eyebrow. “Let’s please move on. And take some salad, too, Sheriff,” she orders.

My body riots at the way she says “sheriff”, and I nearly choke on my lasagna as I take some salad from the bowl. I have a feeling she notices because a subtle smirk is playing on her lips as she makes a plate for Henry. We manage to finish dinner without any further arguments about the doll, mostly because I’m too focused on eating as much of Regina’s insanely good cooking as humanly possible. Henry chatters to us about his day as I start to clear the table, talking excitedly about school projects and upcoming plans with friends. We’ve been doing this more and more frequently, dinner just the three of us. At first it was just for Henry’s sake, but as the months went on I think Regina and I were both pretty surprised to find that we actually like each other - when we’re not trying to kill one another, that is. Now most nights I stay late, drinking wine and listening to Regina snark about people in town, laughing into our wine glasses.

Regina hands me the dirty dishes to rinse before I load the dishwasher, which I now know how to do exactly the way she likes after taking shit about it enough times. She watches with approval, her red lips curling just a little at the edge of her mouth with satisfaction, and I have to focus all my energy on not dropping the next plate onto the floor. I know I put way too much stock into these little moments. I know they mean more to me than they do to either of the Mills. They probably don’t think twice about standing in a warm kitchen on a cold night, about laughing together, about having full bellies. To me, as pathetic as it is...these moments are sort of everything. 

“Emma?”

“Sorry, what?”

Regina’s voice pulls me from my thoughts and I turn to see her watching me. “Are you alright?” she asks, her eyebrows furrowing slightly.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I answer quickly. “Sorry, just tired.” And while that’s not technically the reason for my distractedness, it’s not actually a lie. I’ve barely slept the last three nights, tossing and turning endlessly in frustration, and since it sounds a lot better than “I was lost in thought pining for domestic shit with you,” I’m gonna go with that.

Regina dries her hands on a kitchen towel and steps closer, her dark eyes scrutinizing my face. “Are you not sleeping?” she asks. 

“I’m fine, Regina,” I answer softly. I can’t handle the way she’s looking at me, her eyes full of genuine concern. I can’t let myself hope this means anything. I turn to grab another plate from the sink and she reaches out and grasps my wrist, her fingers wrapping firmly around me. 

“Do you want -”

The sound of smashing glass interrupts her question, the kitchen window shattering as a rock sails through it and lands square in the middle of the dinner table. Regina rushes to tuck Henry safely behind her as the glass slides across the kitchen table and scatters across the floor.

We’re all frozen for a second, processing the violence of the moment. “Are you both okay?” I ask, my eyes roving over Regina and our son. 

Regina and Henry nod silently, and I walk quickly to the window, stepping carefully around the glass as I look out into the crisp night. I can see taillights fading into the distance but I can’t make out the make or model of the car. Some fucking Sheriff I am. The wind is pulling at my hair as I turn back to the two Mills, who are standing there tensely, Henry with his head tucked into Regina’s side. “They’re gone,” I say softly, trying to control the anger in my voice. “Wait here, I’ll get everyone some shoes to wear.”

Regina says nothing, just cradles Henry’s head tightly to her chest as I pick my way to the hall and return with their shoes. I can barely see straight I’m so angry. I pull out my phone and send a text to the station letting them know what happened and asking for a patrol of the area.

“Henry, you okay?”

He nods quietly at me. “Why don’t you go upstairs and relax, sweetheart,” Regina says softly. “I’ll come up and talk with you in a little while.” 

“Sure,” he agrees, his eyes downcast. My heart is breaking as he picks up his creepy doll and props it on his shoulder like a newborn baby. Its eyes bore into me from over the top of his shoulder as he walks slowly upstairs, the glass crunching under his feet.

I turn back to Regina who is refusing to look at me, focusing instead on sweeping up the glass with a long-handled broom. I know she could fix this entire thing with one wave of her hands, and the fact that she hasn’t even thought of that tells me how rattled she is. “Regina,” I say, stepping closer to her. She doesn’t respond and I reach out and grasp the broom, tugging it gently from her hands. She finally looks up at me, her eyes full of emotion. “Has this happened before?” I ask, resting the broom on the counter.

She crosses her arms and turns away from me. “On occasion.”

I step closer and grasp her shoulder, turning her to face me. “Why didn’t you tell me? I’m the Sheriff. It’s my job to keep you safe.” Normally that would have earned me a sarcastic comment at best, and the fact that she doesn’t take the opportunity is another sign of how this has shaken her.

“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” she responds, though I can see her fingertips are trembling, with fear or rage or maybe both.

“Just because you  _ can _ handle it on your own doesn’t mean you have to,” I reply. 

“And what exactly am I supposed to report to you?” she snarls, her eyes bright. “That everyone in town hates me? That they take out their resentment by breaking my windows and - “ she cuts herself off, refusing to admit whatever else the townspeople have subjected her to. “I believe you’re already aware of the matter, Sheriff Swan.”

I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose. “That doesn’t give them the right to do this to you. Or to Henry.”

As the mention of our son, her lips tighten and her shoulders tense. “I can protect our son, thank you very much.”

“I  _ know  _ that, Regina. That isn’t what I meant. I’m just trying to say you don’t have to do this by yourself anymore, okay?”

I can see her waging an inner battle. The instinct to say something harsh and push me away warring against the possibility of having someone on her side for once. I get it. I get the reluctance to trust anyone, because after you’ve been burned enough times, it feels easier to go it alone. But I don’t want that for her. I want her to know that I’m not going to screw her over or walk out on her, or betray her trust. I need her to know that. I reach my hand out tentatively and grasp her fingers, and she doesn’t say anything but the way her fingers clamp so tightly onto mine as she stares at the floor makes my throat tight.

I resist the urge to pull her against me and wrap her up in my arms. Instead, I just hold her hand a little longer, the cool autumn wind tugging at our hair. After a minute she seems to gather herself, and she takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders, schooling her face into a neutral expression. “Well,” she says coolly, dropping my hand. “I suppose I had better tidy this up.” With a wave of her hand the glass returns to its formation in the window, sealing itself perfectly as though nothing happened. 

Regina herself is clearly trying to do the same, putting the last of the dishes into the dishwasher and wiping down the counters. I watch her with my arms crossed, wondering if I should push her to talk to me some more. But I can tell that she’s reached her limit for now, the tense line of her shoulders telling me to back off for the time being. So instead, I take out the trash and recycling, check that all the doors and windows are locked, the curtains shut tightly. Satisfied, I head back to the kitchen to check on Regina, but Henry’s voice makes me pause. I can hear him talking softly, his voice just barely carrying down the stairs. I put my hand on the railing and listen, curious. I should talk to him. He’s probably freaked out, calling one of his friends. As I’m starting to head up the stairs Regina’s comes out of the kitchen, arms crossed. “Why don’t you leave him a little longer. I’ll check on him before bed.”

I turn back to her, my chest squeezing with affection as she leans tiredly against the doorway. “Are you sure?” I ask, glancing back up the stairs. 

“He’ll be alright,” Regina nods, rubbing a hand across her forehead, eyes closed. She rarely does anything like that. Anything that might show that she’s tired or stressed, or vulnerable. She’s always so careful to look composed and calm, so seeing her like this is doing all kinds of things to me, my protective instincts warring with the knowledge that she’d probably bust me in the solar plexus if I tried to coddle her right now.

“Okay,” I answer, knowing I should go but really, really wanting to stay. “I’ll just head home then. I have a patrol car that’s going to check on you guys overnight, okay?”

Regina huffs. “That’s hardly necessary.”

“They’re just going to drive by a couple of times, “ I reassure her. Which is a lie. They’re going to do hourly checks at minimum, but she doesn’t need to know that. “It’s no big deal, just humor me.”

“Very well. For Henry,” she adds stubbornly.

“Exactly. For Henry.” I bite back a smile and head for the door. “I’ll leave you to it. But Regina,” I add, pausing. “If this happens again, will you tell me?”

She looks at me thoughtfully, her eyes dark. It would be so easy to close the distance between us. To pull on the ties of her apron and yank it over her head, push her hips against the wall. If I could just stay, she wouldn’t need a patrol car. If she would just trust me, I think we could really have something. Something real. She studies me for another few seconds, like she’s deciding if she’s going to let me further into her life than she already has. 

After what feels like an eternity, she walks into the kitchen and takes a tupperware of lasagna from the counter, still warm to touch, and presses it into my hands. Her fingers graze mine as she looks up at me and answers honestly. 

“Perhaps.”

* * *

Wow, okay, definitely regretting that whole “I’m so bored” thing.

What in the hell was I thinking? I’ve been running around town for the last several days dealing with various insane shit including a garden gnome incident (god, those things can  _ bite _ ) and some fairy-specific flu virus that causes heightened aggression. I’ve only just managed to wrangle the last of them to the hospital for treatment as I plunk down heavily at my desk, a bag of frozen peas clamped over my eye. “God, what I wouldn’t give for a cat in a tree right now,” I mutter darkly, letting my head fall back against my chair, face throbbing with every beat of my heart. 

“Don’t tell me you’ve taken to sleeping on the job, dear” Regina’s voice cuts through the silence.

I bolt upright, the bag of peas falling into my lap. “Regina, you scared the bejesus out of me,” I sigh, collapsing back into the chair. 

“What happened?” she asks sharply, coming closer to my desk. Her brow is furrowing as she slides her bag off her shoulder, her eyes roving across my face. 

“A slight altercation during a fairy wrangling incident,” I answer tiredly. “I’d rather not get into it.”

“Well, are you alright?” she asks, stepping into the soft circle of light from my desk lamp. She perches herself lightly on the edge of my desk and about a hundred different inappropriate fantasies flicker through my brain.

“I’m fine, Regina,” I answer softly.

“Come here.” She reaches out a hand and although her tone was light, the words hit me in the gut like a sledgehammer. I take a steadying breath and pull my chair to her; she wraps her fingers around my chin, tilting my swollen face into the light. I hear her make a soft noise of displeasure in the back of her throat and I really hope she can’t feel the way my pulse spikes at the sound. Her thumb sweeps gently against the angry flesh of my cheekbone and it stings, but I barely notice at this point. I am also distantly aware of the bag of frozen peas melting in my lap, but I am way too focused on her face, the downward pull of her mouth, the way the lamp light casts the scar on her lip into deep shadow. “There, that’s better,” she says with a small, self-satisfied smile. 

“What’s better?” I ask. Clearly I was way too far gone gazing like an idiot into her eyes to pay attention to anything else.

“Here, take a look,” she answers, digging a small compact mirror out of her purse. She holds it up to my face and I see that the bruising and swelling has faded a bit, like the injury is days old rather than hours. The throbbing has eased up too. 

“Hey, thanks,” I smile, looking up at her. She crosses her arms, pleased. 

“It’s nothing, dear,” she replies. The lamp casts a warm, orange glow on her face, the hollow of her throat dipped in shadow, and I have to curl my fingers into my thighs to stop myself from reaching out to her. I can’t bring myself to look away from her, and she opens her mouth to say something when the doors to the sheriff’s station bang open, causing us both to start. David comes striding in through the doors, his face serious.

“Emma, Regina, good, you’re both here. We need you outside, now.”

Regina and I exchange a concerned glance. “Okay, we’re coming,” I tell David, tossing the peas to melt in the garbage can as Regina slides gracefully off my desk. We follow close on his heels as he leads us to a densely forested area on the side of the road a couple of blocks away. Annoyingly, he refuses to answer any of our questions except to say, “You have to see for yourselves.” He stops at what looks like a totally random spot on the side of the road and points to the woods. “She’s in there.”

“She?” I ask.

He gestures to the path again. “You’ll see what I mean, I can’t explain it.”

I glance at Regina whose face seems to mirror my own expression of curious concern. It’s dark, only the street light half a block away providing a dull, orange glow. I can see it reflected in Regina’s dark eyes as we come to a silent agreement, her nodding with the slightest incline of her head. We’ve been through a lot of crazy shit together, and I like how we present a united front now. I step over the low wooden fence and help Regina over too, pulling out my flashlight as we step into the tree line. The thick, yellow beam of my flashlight sweeps across the trees as I start to pick my way through the dense overgrowth. Regina is close behind me, cursing softly as she has to navigate over fallen trees and twisted roots in her impractical shoes. I help her every so often, grasping her hand to help her hop over the bigger nurse logs littering the forest floor. 

“Why in the hell could he not just tell us what’s going on?” I mutter to her, annoyed. I take her hand in mine, my other on her waist to steady her as she tries to climb over a fallen branch as gracefully as possible. I don’t know why exactly, but I feel like I need to speak quietly. 

She seems to feel the same, because she answers in a huffy whisper. “Well, the Charmings aren’t exactly known for their communication skills. And let’s face it, your parents have a flair for the dramatic.”

I’m a little torn between laughing and feeling guilty at making fun of my own father - or, he’s technically my father, I guess. That whole thing still feels weird, but then what part of my life isn’t weird at this point? I make sure she’s steady on her feet before I release her arm and turn, pulling my flashlight out from where I’ve jammed it in my pocket. As I sweep the shaft of light through the dense trees, the beam sweeps over the tips of someone’s shoes. There’s a person standing in the woods, a few feet in front of me. I freeze and feel Regina knock into my back with a soft  _ oof.  _ “Emma, what…”

I reach back and grasp her wrist with what I hope she understands is a  _ please shut up  _ squeeze, nodding my head towards the person standing silently several feet in front of us.  _ Why aren’t they moving? Why aren’t they saying anything? _ The shoes are black patent leather heels, like something Regina might wear. I can feel Regina leaning into my back at the sight of the eerily silent person standing so close. I take a breath and square my shoulders because I am the goddamned Sheriff and call out, “Hello? Who’s there?”

The person doesn’t answer, just continues to stand there silently with my flashlight aimed at their feet. They’re standing in the midst of a dense copse of trees and I can’t see anything else. I swallow and take a step forward, dropping my grip on Regina’s wrist. As I do, I smell the sharp ozone of magic, the soft  _ whump _ of a fire being lit cutting through the eerie silence. A quick glance over my shoulder confirms that Regina is ready at my back, two flickering flames balanced menacingly in her palms. The fire dances across her face, the hollows of her eyes, and I feel a burst of confidence at knowing who is ready to step in and kick ass if anything goes sideways.

I take another step forward and call out again, but there’s still no answer. Taking a deep breath, I push through the trees into a small clearing and nearly drop my flashlight as I see it’s the Blue Fairy. “ _ Blue?” _ I sputter, stunned. “What are you doing out here, why didn’t you answer me before?”

Blue doesn’t respond, continuing to stand completely still. Her eyes are vacant, staring. “Blue?”

Regina makes her way through the trees as I step closer, reaching out to touch the fairy. At the feeling of her skin I draw my hand back. “Holy shit.”

“Emma? What is it?” 

“She’s – Jesus I think she’s been turned to stone.” I reach out again cautiously and rest two fingers gently on Blue’s arm. It looks like flesh in the sharp light of the flashlight beam, I can see every pore, every fine hair, every freckle. But she feels as cold as death, her flesh hard as marble. Regina reaches out, brushing a hand against the fairy’s cheek. 

“Oh, no.”

“What is it? Have you seen this before?”

“She’s been petrified.”

“Wh- you mean like in Harry Potter?”

Regina scoffs. “I told Henry those books  _ completely  _ misrepresent the magical community, they’re wildly inaccurate.”

“Regina.”

“ _ Yes,  _ alright it’s similar to that, except this wasn’t done by some snake.”

“Basilisk.”

Regina pinches the bridge of her nose, eyes closing in barely contained frustration. “Emma, we are standing in the woods in the middle of the night with a petrified fairy, now is not the time.”

“Right, sorry,” I answer sheepishly. I turn to gaze at Blue, my flashlight picking up the fragile capillaries in her eyelids. “So then what did this?”

“I don’t know,” Regina replied thoughtfully, bringing her face closer to Blue’s. “It could be any number of things, none of them good.”

I sigh, running my fingers through my hair. I have a very not-good feeling about this. I mean, obviously. But this feels particularly ominous for some reason. “Hey, what is that?” I bend down to get a closer look at Blue’s hand. “She’s holding something. It looks like a piece of paper.”

Regina crouches next to me. “Can you get it out of her hand?”

“I can try.” I grasp the edge of paper in Blue’s clenched fist, trying to wiggle it loose. It starts to move a little and I work it gently with the tips of my fingers. 

“Be careful,” Regina instructs. “Don’t force it or you’ll –“ A soft tearing sound stops her mid-sentence. “Rip it.” 

“Damn it.” I pull what I can salvage from Blue’s fist and hold it up to my flashlight. Regina comes to stand next to me, her hair brushing the side of my face as she leans in closely. There’s miniscule script visible on the scrap of paper. I squint at it, pulling it closer to my face. Regina mutters in annoyance and holds my wrist still so she can read it. “Do you know what language that is?” I ask her.

She grasps my palm and pulls it closer, scrutinizing the script, her breath warm on my palm. “It looks like it could be some kind of Elvish.” Regina’s eyes are big, scanning the writing intensely, and I have to stop from smiling at how cute she is when she’s nerding out with magic. I’m suddenly distracted as the paper starts to get warm in my hand, the edges starting to smoke for a millisecond before the entire thing erupts into a tiny flame. 

Regina lets out a soft sound of surprise as we both jump back and I drop the paper, shaking my stinging palm. “Ow, shit!” The whole thing turns to ash before it hits the ground, twisting into the chilly night breeze. I glance at Regina, both of us breathing quickly with adrenaline. “Remind me never to complain about being bored again, okay?” 

She smirks, and the familiar sight makes me feel a little more calm. 

“You know what they say, dear. Be careful what you wish for.”

* * *

We bring Blue’s body to the station.

Regina uses a levitation spell to move her, and I have to suppress a shiver at the eerie sight of the fairy gliding through the trees like a ghost. We all gather around her at the station, arms crossed. It’s not the weirdest thing any of us have seen, not by a long shot. But it’s still unsettling as hell. I feel a weight on my shoulders, one that I’ve started to get used to. A feeling of responsibility, knowing that it’s my job to make this right. I resisted that feeling for a long time.

I mean I’m not exactly used to looking after anyone but myself, and I sure as hell resented being expected to take all of this on at first. But now, I don’t know. I don’t exactly like the feeling, but it’s kind of nice to have people that rely on you. That trust you to help them, and not steal their valuables when they’re not looking. I try not to feel the responsibility as a burden anymore, but more like a gift. No one has ever had faith in me, not up until pretty recently. Least of all me. So yeah, it feels alright knowing that people trust me to fix things like this.

I feel all of their eyes on me, waiting for instructions, and I tilt my chin in that way that I do when I’m trying to convince people that I know what the hell I’m talking about. “Okay, I want two teams of canvassers. We need to know where she went tonight and who she was with. I also want to know if there have been any recent threats against her, or if she’s pissed anyone off lately,” I list on my fingers. “Especially Gold, this seems way too much like something he’d be into,” I add. “Report back anything of relevance to me as soon as possible,” I order, dismissing them.

Regina looks to me with an expression of mild respect, and I have to stop myself from grinning like an idiot. As the others file out of the room, I step closer to Blue, my expression turning serious again. Regina comes to stand next to me. “So?” I ask her. 

“Yes?” she replies, turning to me. I notice a hint of dark circles under her eyes, traces of blue so light that anyone who wasn’t unhealthily into looking at her face might not notice. I open my mouth to ask her if she’s alright, if she’s sleeping okay.

At the last second, though, I switch gears and tell her, “I’ve got the sheriff part of this investigation started. Now I need you.” Regina’s eyes widen a fraction and she turns to face me, like she’s waiting for me to correct myself, or accuse her of something. I don’t do either, just turn to her and explain, “You’re one of the most knowledgeable people in town about this kind of thing. Right now, I have no idea what I’m supposed to be hunting. I need a list of everything that could have done this, we’ll have to narrow things down as much as we can and go from there.”

I half expect her to tell me off for ordering her around like one of my deputies, but after a glance at the petrified fairy that’s bearing witness to this conversation, she just nods. “Can you watch Henry? All my books are in my vault, and I imagine this is going to take most of the night.”

I shake my head. “Snow can keep him overnight, she’s been wanting more time with him anyway. Let me help you.”

I see a hint of a smile on her red lips as she replies, ”Very well. I’ll call her and ask her if he can stay the night.”

I’m already pulling my jacket on as I ask her, “Can you magic us there? I don’t want to waste any time.”

She nods distractedly, the phone pressed to her ear as she talks to Snow and then more gently to Henry. “Are you ready?” she asks, ending the call and shouldering her bag. She stretches out her fingers to me and I grasp them in mine, my reply of  _ ready  _ lost in a swirl of lavender smoke as we fly through time and space. 

* * *

“I think a list of things that  _ aren’t _ capable of petrification might actually be shorter.” 

I rake my fingers through my hair in exasperation, letting my head hang back as I jam the heels of my palms into my eye sockets. My eyes are blurring with exhaustion from reading all this ridiculously miniscule script. Why exactly does all magic-related writing have to be so goddamned spindly? Not to mention the fact that it’s always in ancient, heavy, dust-caked books that make my skin itch. Hasn’t the magical community discovered the fucking internet?

“I admit I hadn’t realized how prevalent of a skill it is,” Regina replies, sipping at her wine. She apparently has been using her vault as a wine cellar in addition to storage of all her magical paraphernalia, and I’m definitely not mad about it. I gratefully take a sip from my own glass as she muses, “But at least not all of these apply. There’s zero chance it was a nymph, for instance. They couldn’t survive in this climate.” I nod, carefully rolling up yet another fragile scroll and adding it to my growing pile of useless magical information. The edges crumble as I set it down and Regina skewers me with a look.

“Sorry,” I say tightly.

“Honestly, do you know how old that is? Have a little more care,” she frowns.

I feel the exhaustion weighing on my temper. “Look, is it my fault all this super-important information is written on ancient tissue paper? Can we not go digital?”

Regina clicks her tongue in irritation and meticulously wraps up her own scroll. I notice that she still looks fresh-faced, and her fingers are somehow not filthy with dust like mine. “There’s something to be said for analog, dear,” she quips, quirking an eyebrow. “I doubt you’d want the average basement-dweller having access to potentially lethal spells.”

“Fair point,” I answer softly, deflating. I’m really hoping she doesn’t notice how I instantly melt when she calls me  _ dear _ like that, but I’m not exactly known for my subtlety. I clear my throat and look away, hefting a dusty book from the pile and cracking it open. “Christ, this smells like moldy gym socks,” I complain, wrinkling my nose. 

“That’s what you get for basing all of your magical knowledge on Harry Potter,” Regina replies drily. She traces a perfectly manicured nail down the length of the scroll she’s looking at, her hair spilling over her shoulder and falling into her eyes. “It would appear nothing in the Djinn family would be able to achieve this level of petrification. The subtype is rather rare, that plays well in our favour in terms of narrowing things down.” 

I lean back in my chair, giving up on any pretense that I’m actually working. The wine is starting to make me feel all warm, and it’s getting kind of hard to do anything except stare at Regina like a lovesick idiot. Luckily for me, she’s actually working and doesn’t seem to notice. “What do you mean?” I ask after a moment, her words sinking in.

“Well,” she says, sitting up straight. I have to fight back a smile at the tone of her voice, the one she gets when she’s explaining magic. It’s obvious she likes to talk about it, nerd that she is, and I silently make a pact with myself to ask her questions like this more often. “Blue didn’t look physically changed in any way. In many cases the victim will turn to actual stone, or another substance, like metal.”

“So what does that mean, do you think?”

Her face darkens as she crosses her arms, thinking. “That we’re in a lot more trouble than I realized.” I set my wine glass down, leaning towards her as I wait for her to finish her thought. “In other instances of petrification, simple herbal remedies, or slaying the creature that brought on the event will reanimate the victim. In this case, it won’t be so easy.” She hooks her hair behind her ear distractedly, it’s started to curl in the damp air of the vault. 

“Tell me Regina,” I say gently. I can see in her face that she doesn’t want to, because like me her instincts are to face this thing alone. She meets my eyes and I can see her deciding whether or not to share the burden. 

“Something has taken her soul,” she says finally.

“That’s possible?” I choke out. She looks at me with exasperation. What isn’t fucking possible in a land of fairy tales? “Right, sorry,” I shake my head. Taking a breath I drag my palm across my face. “So, even if we kill the thing that took Blue’s soul…”

“She may not reanimate,” Regina completes my thought. “We need to find wherever her soul is being stored. I can tell you now, it will be well-hidden.”

“What’s the purpose of stealing a soul? What can you do with them?” I feel the urge to bring my hand to my chest protectively, as though I can somehow prevent my soul from escaping from my body. 

“Nothing good. Typically, they can be used in spells or potions to make them stronger. But occasionally, they can be…consumed. For power.”

My mouth drops open. “You mean  _ eat them?!" _

Regina rolls her eyes. “Yes. I was rather trying not to be so frank, but I suppose I am speaking with you after all. They can be eaten, with certain spells or by certain entities. They are immensely powerful. Though it’s likely whatever it is won’t eat it right away. It’s probable it will want to store up a few before it does so, to multiply its power.”

I cover my face with my hands, feeling slightly nauseated. “So we might still have time to save her then,” I mumble through my hands. Regina’s fingers wrap around my wrist, pulling my hand away so I can look at her. The gnawing disgust in my gut eases up a bit at her touch. 

“There’s more, Emma.”

“How can there possibly be more than that?” I ask, my voice a half-whisper.

She’s still holding my wrist as she answers. “There’s at least one more name you’ll need to add to your list of possible suspects.”

“Who?” 

“Me.”

She drops her gaze and tries to pull her fingers from my wrist but I reach up and hold her hand in place. “What in the hell are you talking about, Regina?”

“I’ve never done it,” she says intensely, her eyes meeting mine, like she needs to see if I believe her or not. “But I could.” I know what she’s thinking. Even though she and I have managed to move past everything that happened between us, there are still a lot of people in Storybrooke that haven’t, as evidenced by the rock through her window the other night. I know she carries the weight of that every day, and I know it isn’t easy for her. “Emma,” she adds, like she needs to make absolutely sure I understand. “I know how to do this.”

“But you didn’t,” I answer firmly. Her gaze softens a fraction. “Just because you could, doesn’t mean you would.” My thumb sweeps across her wrist as I grasp her hand more tightly. I need her to know that I believe in her, but words don’t feel like enough.

“I appreciate the confidence, Emma,” she says quietly, her eyes full of softness. “But not everyone in this town has the same faith in me.”

“To hell with them then,” I answer fiercely. I know her better than she thinks I do. I know what she used to be, hell I’ve seen it with my own eyes. But I also know that isn’t who she is now. And the more I get to know her, the more I believe that was never who she truly was. The Evil Queen was someone she created to protect herself. The real Regina is the one looking at me with vulnerability in her eyes that she’s struggling to hide. “Listen, I’m the sheriff okay? And I decide who is a suspect, and who isn’t. And as far as I’m concerned, your name isn’t going on this list. Okay?”

She stares at me a few long seconds, the flickering candlelight causing the shadows to dance across her face. Her eyes are full, and she takes a shaky breath before answering gently, “I suppose I will defer to your expertise on the matter...Sheriff.” 

The tone of her voice as she says  _ sheriff _ makes my breath hitch. I cover it with a soft laugh and release her hand that I’m still holding tightly against me. “Good. Now let’s start focusing on actual suspects. Hand me another scroll? A less decrepit one would be appreciated.” She rolls her eyes and hands me the yellowed parchment. Her gaze lingers on me for a while as I unfurl it before she pulls another heavy book in front of her, a soft smile playing on her lips, and a warm look in her eyes.

* * *

We work most of the night until the candles start to gutter and my eyelids grow so heavy I don’t realize I’m falling asleep until I’m waking up again. I immediately know that I’m not at home, because the bed I’m in is definitely too comfortable to be mine, and the thread count on these sheets is way the hell outside of my paygrade. 

Regina’s, then. 

I open my eyes, the weak morning sunlight streaming in through the blinds as I sit up and crack my neck. My clothes are folded neatly on a chair and I’m wearing a pair of silk pajamas that are definitely not my own. I can smell coffee brewing and I get a rippling feeling of warmth in my gut. It’s a feeling I only ever get when I’m here. Safe and reassuring, like warm water trickling down my spine. I like waking up knowing there are people I care about nearby. I make my way to the kitchen and find Regina dressed in identical pajamas, though hers are black and she actually looks like she belongs in them. She’s leaning against the kitchen counter cradling a cup of coffee in her hands. “Good morning,” I greet her, leaning against the doorway. 

She looks over at me with an uncertain look in her eyes, and I can tell she’s having doubts about magicking me here rather than to my own house. Like she’s worried I’ll question it. “Good morning,” she says stiffly. “I hope you slept well.”

It’s kind of adorable when the Evil Queen looks uncertain, but I don’t have the heart to drag it out, so instead I walk forward and swipe her coffee from her hands and take a deep sip. “Sure did. God I love that bed.”

Her body visibly relaxes as she schools her features into mild annoyance. “I could have poured you your own, you know.”

I shrug, grinning. “Everything tastes better when it’s stolen.”

“You would know,” she sniffs, pouring herself another cup.

I roll my eyes, but I can’t help the smile on my face. I like how intimate this feels, getting to wake up with Regina. Even if she just brought me here because she was exhausted, it’s still nice that she trusts me enough to let me see her in a less-than-mayoral state. Though to be fair, her pajamas probably cost more than my entire wardrobe. “So about today, how busy are you at Town Hall right now?”

“I have a few meetings I can move around. Why do you ask?”

I take another sip of coffee, trying hard not to notice how the morning sun is lighting up her brown eyes. “I want to go back to where we found Blue and see if there’s anything that we missed. It was so dark when we found her.”

“Excellent idea, Sheriff.”

“Wait, you’re actually agreeing with me?” I ask, my eyebrows shooting up.

“Well, you do have a few good ideas, on occasion,” she answers wryly. 

I grin at her sideways compliment, but before I can respond the front door opens and slams shut, the sound of Snow’s cheerful car horn filtering in the window as she drives to school with a wave. “Hey moms!” Henry greets us, barreling into the kitchen.

“Henry Mills, get those muddy shoes off this instant,” Regina scolds while simultaneously pulling him into a crushing hug. “What have you been doing, moonlighting on a farm?”

“Moooom,” Henry sighs, kicking off his shoes before coming to wrap his arms around me. 

“Why didn’t Snow just take you to school with her?” I ask as I return his hug warmly, squeezing him so hard he grunts softly.

“She had an early meeting,” he answers sleepily. As he looks up at me I notice how pale he looks and I frown with concern. 

“Hey kid, you okay?” I cup his cheek, my eyes roving over the dark circles under his eyes. “You look a little run down.”

Regina comes over and grasps our son by the shoulders, turning him around for a thorough inspection. “Are you not sleeping well, sweetheart?” she asks, her voice so warm and soft my knees abruptly start to weaken. 

“I’m fine, Neal was just crying a lot last night,” he says with a yawn. 

Regina clicks her tongue, scrutinizing his face for a few more seconds before she releases his chin. “All right. But early to bed tonight, okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” he answers, pulling down a box of cereal. “How’s the investigation going? Is Blue going to be okay?”

“She’ll be fine kid, no need to worry,” I answer quickly. Regina and I exchange a serious look over the top of his head. We both know the answer is far more complicated than that, but I don’t want to scare him with the truth either. 

Here’s hoping I didn’t just lie to my kid.

* * *

“Seriously? You  _ knew  _ we were going to be in the forest, you couldn’t have picked more practical shoes?”

Regina’s soft growl settles in my chest as I help her back through the dense forest to the crime scene - if that’s the right word for it. “Forgive me,  _ Sheriff,  _ but I thought I would be magicking us to the location in question.”

“We need to examine the area leading up to the crime scene too, Regina,” I remind her, grasping her hand tightly as she clambers fairly ungraciously over a rotting tree stump. I swear this forest has somehow gotten denser since we were here last, snarling roots and large damp boulders blocking our path time and again. I’m finding it pretty satisfying to watch her Royal Highness look anything less than perfectly poised as she tries to navigate the thick undergrowth, but since I kind of prefer my organs to remain inside my body I haven’t teased her about it yet.

“Yes, so you have mentioned,” she says tightly. “You might have done so before we left the house.”

“Look, why don’t I just carry you, it will be way faster,” I offer.

“Funny,” she grunts, leaning heavily against me as I mostly lift her over a log. “And here I thought you enjoyed having kneecaps.”

“Alright, point taken,” I concede. I don’t exactly mind getting to hold her hand, as pathetically desperate as that makes me. The only problem is that it's sort of distracting me from looking for actual clues, or basically functioning at all. I do my best to focus, and actually manage to for a minute, until she slips on a damp fallen tree trunk and I have to scramble to catch her. She lands heavily in my arms, wide-eyed with shock. We both freeze in surprise, her body arching backwards, my hair cascading around her face. “Are you okay?” I ask cautiously, our noses nearly touching. How does she always smell so annoyingly  _ good?!  _

“I’m fine,” she says with irritation, though I swear I can feel her heart hammering against my own chest. I set her back on her feet and she takes a moment to straighten her extremely impractical pantsuit, and I have to turn away to keep from grinning at how adorable she is. Focus, Emma, Christ. We finally make our way to the clearing where we found Blue and because she so  _ clearly _ feels like she needs to regain some control, she starts to boss me around.

“You take that side of the clearing, be on the lookout for anything unusual. But remember that you might not actually be able to  _ see  _ anything,” she adds, pointing a manicured nail at me.

I frown with confusion. “You...want me to look for something that I can’t see.”

“Exactly,” she replies. I level her with a look and she rolls her eyes, though I get the sense she’s enjoying having the upper hand. Such a pain in the ass. A hot pain in the ass. “Use your magical senses when you’re looking. Open yourself up like I taught you.” Right, yeah. That. I try to think back to our last lesson in magic but all I can remember is that Regina was wearing this really dark red lipstick, and I may have been somewhat mesmerized by that. I need to work on my retention skills. She seems to get an inkling that I might not remember everything as clearly as she’s hoping because she puts her hands on her hips and says with exasperation, “Just...see  _ feelingly.”  _

“Feelingly,” I nod. “Right. Got it.”

She glares at me and turns around, scouring the small clearing. Right, okay. I can see feelingly. Just gotta open up the magic well and let things flow - or something like that. I still haven’t really gotten the hang of using magic outside moments of sheer panic but I do my best. I try to open my mind and start to look around with my actual eyes as well, just in case. I can hear Regina behind me, her high heels crunching on dry leaves. The air is getting crisp with the beginning of autumn, but it’s a sunny day, and I can smell the warm pine needles that are blanketing the forest floor around us. Even though having our townspeople petrified obviously isn’t something I enjoy, I feel a little ripple of warmth that I get to have this time with Regina. Which I’m sure she’d roll her eyes at.

I sigh and crouch down, my leather boots squeaking as I squint at the sparse tufts of grass around us. I notice that it all looks strange. Not flattened - bent. Every blade of grass I can see that’s peeking up between the dried leaves is bent at 90 degrees, but not broken. Not trampled. “What in the hell?” I mutter softly. I close my eyes and reach out, at least some of what Regina taught me coming back to me. And she’s right. I can  _ feel  _ something.

Something off. 

Something familiar. 

And there's a strange taste in the air, like old metal, almost like I’ve been sucking on a penny. I grimace at the gross flavor and open my eyes, trying to follow the sensation.

“Hey, Regina?” I call over my shoulder. “Come look at this.” She doesn’t answer, and at first I think she’s ignoring me. “Regina?” I turn my head at the sound of a muffled cry and see Regina fall to her knees, her hands thrown out to her sides as though she’s been strung up with ropes. “ _ Shit.”  _ I scramble over to her just as whatever was holding her aloft releases her and she lands flat on her back. She looks like she’s struggling to breathe, her heels kicking against the dirt, fingers curling into the earth at her sides. My heart is hammering in my chest as my eyes fly over her body, trying to figure out what the hell is going on. “Regina, what is it!? Talk to me!” Her eyes are rolling back in her head and it looks like she’s struggling to breathe, but I can’t see what’s happening. I grasp her face in desperation, CPR being the one and only instinct that seems to come to mind. I pry her mouth open to give her air and that’s when I realize what’s happening. “What the  _ fuck?”  _

Her mouth is full of dirt. 

Not just dirt; pine needles, dried leaves, full to the brim as though she’d somehow managed to swallow half the forest floor. I can see her nose is packed with it too, completely blocking her airway. Her struggling is starting to get weak and erratic, her eyes crossing slightly and I have to force myself not to lose my goddamn mind. There’s no way in hell I’m losing her. There’s no way in hell I’m letting my son lose his mother.  _ Think, think, think.  _ Still holding her face in my hands, I close my eyes and open my mind completely. And just like in moments of danger in the past, it’s like my body knows what to do. I can feel that same awful sensation from earlier surrounding her, a deep, ancient magic that has an almost slimy texture to it. I’m trying not to gag as my mouth fills with that metallic taste again, but stronger. And now it doesn’t taste like a penny, it tastes like old, clotted blood. I force myself to swallow and grit my teeth, sweat breaking out on my forehead. 

Her kicks are getting weaker, I can feel her slipping away, and again my instincts take over. I let my magic, pure and clean and bright, sweep over that sticky darkness that’s clinging to her. The evil starts to shrink back as my magic gets brighter, more powerful. It’s burning so brightly now I’m not sure how I’m not on fire, it feels like I am, but in a good way. It’s coming from my chest, my eyes, my mouth, pouring out of me like a blast of starlight. As the last of the darkness sizzles away with a high pitched shrieking noise that will most definitely be haunting my dreams, the light snaps out of existence like it was never there. I blink in surprise, my chest heaving with exertion and adrenaline. Regina is limp in my arms and I hurriedly check to see if she’s breathing. Her eyes snap open and she rolls to the side and vomits the remaining clots of dirt and leaves, her body lurching as it empties itself of everything.

After a moment she sits up slowly and looks back at me, her eyes full of tears, pine needles in her hair. We stare at each other for a few beats in shock, both of us panting, before she leans forward ever so slightly and I take that as my cue to pull her close. The fact that she doesn’t resist but instead leans her forehead heavily on my chest tells me that for once I actually did the right thing. She’s shaking slightly as her breathing slows down, and I hold her tightly, my hand holding the back of her head against my chest.

Eventually she pulls back and looks at me, her face streaked with dirt. I swipe a pine needle from her chin with my thumb and she swallows heavily before saying in a rasping voice. “Thank you.”

I nod, my heart breaking at the look in her eyes. “Of course. Always.” She closes her eyes for a second and I take a heaving breath, trying to calm my still-pounding heart. “What happened?”

“It was a trap,” she replies. She opens her eyes and they’re clear and calm again, not a hint of vulnerability left. “Whoever did this left a trap here in case we came back searching for evidence.”

“Did you pick up on anything, before…?”

“Only something powerful. And dark.”

I nod, my chest constricting at the memory. “When I was helping you I felt it. It felt so... _ old.  _ Like I couldn’t find the beginning of it. And it tasted like death.” I shake my head, none of what I’m saying even making sense to me. But Regina nods like she knows exactly what I mean. My chest won’t stop aching at the sight of her, streaked with dirt, her hair full of leaves. But I know she’ll punch me if I ask her if she wants to take a step back, and something about that is comforting as hell. 

“Yes, I felt that too, Emma.” She shakes her head thoughtfully. “Truthfully, I’ve never felt anything quite like this.”

Without thinking I reach out and run my fingers tenderly through her hair. She doesn’t flinch or look annoyed, but I still pull a leaf out of her hair just to save face. “Regina...exactly how fucked are we right now, would you say?” 

She looks up at me, her eyes fiery, though I notice she’s still mildly trembling. 

“Emma, we’re  _ supremely  _ fucked.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Emma Swan, I swear if you check up on me  _ one more time  _ I will be sending fireballs to places you would rather not have them.”

“Whoa, would you chill out? I’m just here to drop off some lunch, you lunatic.”

This is, of course, a huge lie. I am absolutely checking up on her, which I’ve been doing embarrassingly often for the last two days, something she ran out of patience for about as quickly as you’d expect. It’s just - I’ve been having nightmares ever since the forest, awful dreams about her choking to death in my arms that have me waking up in a cold sweat, and I have a deep and irresistible need to know that she’s okay. 

Frequently. 

I hold the decoy lunch from Granny’s aloft and I don’t think she necessarily buys it, but her posture softens enough that I feel mostly safe to approach. I leave the peace offering in front of her and lean on her desk with my arms crossed. Aside from her voice still sounding a little raw, she seems fine. I guess I just don’t believe her. I know that I wouldn’t be, if that had happened to me. God knows she’s made of tougher stuff than I am, but still. I’m careful not to look like I’m concerned or worried though, I know that’s a surefire way to get my ass kicked out of the office, so I keep my tone light as I ask, “How’s work going?”

“It’s fine,” she answers, pulling the box of chicken salad closer. “Your mother is yet again asking for an exorbitant education budget for this quarter, but that’s nothing new.” I smirk a little. I kind of enjoy their consistent butting of heads. At least they do it with legislation rather than actual weaponry now. “What about you? Any updates from the station?” she asks, taking a bite of salad. I also ordered her a side of fries, which I know she’ll scoff at and then eat. 

My face darkens at the question. “No,” I answer gruffly, crossing my arms. “No updates.” I walk to her bookshelf, my back to her as I try to school the frustration in my chest. I’ve interviewed everyone in town, checked all three of our security cams, written a requisition to Regina for  _ more  _ security cams, and spent a ton of overtime hours in Regina’s vault trying to pin down what the hell this thing is, and so far it’s all come to nothing. The feelings of failure and responsibility have become so heavy on my shoulders the last few days that sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe. 

“Emma.” I don’t turn around, but her voice - gravelly as it is right now - is soft and warm. She knows I’m struggling, and I find myself trying to figure out just when we got to know each other so well. I guess it sort of creeped up on both of us. Instead of answering her I grab one of the books at random and start leafing through it. Anything to distract myself from the negative words circling through my brain. Words like  _ failure  _ and  _ screwup  _ and  _ never, ever good enough.  _

The book is pulled from my hands and I blink in surprise to see that Regina is standing in front of me. She puts a hand on one hip and tosses the book back on the shelf. “Emma, this creature, whatever it is - it’s powerful. And smart. It’s been intelligent enough to avoid detection, not to mention it got the drop on me, something I don’t intend to allow a second time,” she adds with fury. “But we  _ will  _ figure it out.”

I want to believe her, but the words in my head are so loud. The weight on my shoulders is so heavy. “How do you know that?” I ask, and my voice is embarrassingly small. 

She reaches out and straightens the collar of my button up shirt, smoothing it down with her fingers in a way that makes me swallow heavily, before replying in a matter-of-fact voice, “Because we always do.”

I feel a genuine smile pulling at my lips. “Okay,” I nod.

She smiles with satisfaction. “Good. Now get out,” she adds, turning on her heel. “And  _ don’t  _ check on me for the rest of the day.”

I make a noise of irritation and cross my arms. “Regina! You nearly died in my arms, sue me if I’m worried about you okay?”

“I’ve been through far worse,” she says archly, sitting regally in her chair.

“Forgive me if that’s not exactly comforting,” I reply with annoyance. 

“Oh, so this is about your own comfort then?” she asks, a hint of a smile playing on her lips.

Only I’m not exactly in the mood for playful, and the casual way she's acting about nearly dying is starting to piss me off, because I don't buy it. “What exactly is your problem?" I ask, stalking to her desk. "Why are you acting like your life isn’t important? Are you really that resistant to being cared about?” Okay, might have let a little too much slip there. Here’s hoping she didn’t read that exactly the way I meant it. Christ, Emma, get yourself together.

A range of emotions passes over her face; darkness shifting behind her eyes. At first I think she’s about to make good on that fireball threat, and then I think she’s about to tell me to take a hike and never speak to her again. But after a few seconds of what seems like a pretty intense internal debate, she grabs the salad off her desk, spears some lettuce violently, and says to her lap, “You can come over for dinner and check up on me.  _ Tomorrow.” _

I’d been bracing myself for fire and brimstone, or at the very least to be wearing that chicken salad on my way out. This subdued agreement is definitely a new one for me, and I have no actual idea what it means. Unsure how to play this, I clear my throat and nod. “Oh. Uh, sure, yeah.” She looks up at me, a soft and exasperated smile on her lips. I find myself grinning idiotically as I back out of her office, a bubble of hope blooming in my chest.

“Tomorrow.”

* * *

I manage to steer clear of Regina for the rest of the day, though I might do a casual walk-by of her office once on the way to a call, craning my neck as I pass her corner window just to be on the safe side that she’s still breathing and doesn’t have a mouthful of earth going on. I stay late again, my eyelids heavy as I go over the interviews my deputies have taken from everyone in town for what feels like the hundredth time. I’m convinced there must be something I’ve missed, but at this point I practically have these things memorized and I still haven’t figured out what it is.

“Emma,” David says softly, his eyes gentle in the pool of light from his desk lamp. “Go home. You’re exhausted, and this stuff isn’t going anywhere.” I open my mouth to protest but he cuts me off, “I will comb through the interviews tonight, okay?” I want to argue, but the exhaustion in my limbs wins out.

“Okay,” I answer, stretching. “Thanks, David.”

“Of course, go get some rest,” he smiles warmly.

I grab my coat and convince myself not to do a creepy drive-by of Regina’s on the way home. If she catches my incredibly-telltale yellow Bug driving past her place I will never hear the end of it. But even after a long shower and a lazy dinner of frozen pizza, she and Henry are still on my mind. As I crawl into bed I figure that a text message doesn’t count as a check-in. Right? It’s just a text. No big deal. I type out a quick message. 

**Emma: Hey. Not checking in or anything, just wanted to see how you guys are.**

The response comes almost immediately.

**Regina: And how exactly is this not a check-in, Sheriff Swan?**

**Emma: I believe an official check-in requires an in person presence. This is definitely not in person. I’m just seeing how you are. Totally different.**

**Regina: I see. Well Henry and I are doing fine. Not that you’re worried.**

**Emma: Exactly.**

**Regina: Goodnight, Emma. Thank you for this non check-in.**

**Emma: Anytime.**

**Regina: <3**

I nearly drop my phone as the heart emoji registers in my brain. Regina never, ever uses emojis, except occasionally the nails-painting one when she’s being an asshole about something. This is a first, and I am so pathetically swooning about it and what exactly it might mean. I start to google “heart emoji just friends?” and then I throw my phone down in frustration because I am such an idiot. It’s an emoji. That’s all. No big deal. Right? I groan loud enough that my neighbor bangs on the wall. I punch back in irritation, wincing as my knuckles bark against the drywall and eventually manage to fall asleep with my mind in chaos and my hand throbbing.

* * *

Midway through the next day I’m still trying not to obsess about that stupid text. I’ve re-read our conversation about twenty times now and finally got annoyed enough with myself that I threw my phone in my desk drawer in a huff. Out of desperation for a lead, and for something to take my mind off of things, I’ve been scrolling through Reddit’s _ r/mythology _ in the hopes that someone might have read some dusty book somewhere that might describe what we’re looking for. A bit of a Hail Mary, but at this point I’ll take anything. 

“Emma?” I tear my eyes from the comment section where someone named unic0rnl0v3r is arguing about the theoretical properties of fairy dust to see David looking at me with concern, and my stomach clenches.

“What is it?”

“We’ve got another one.” My body goes rigid as his words sink in.  _ No, no, no.  _ My hand is reaching for the phone in my drawer before my brain has even caught up to the situation, but his voice causes me to pause again. “It’s not her.” I stare at him for a few seconds, the dread weighing down my body momentarily taking a pause as I realize that David  _ knows _ . He knows about my feelings for Regina. He knows that it’s more than just some stupid crush, too. How long has he known that? How long have _ I  _ known that? “Emma?” he says again.

I shake my head. “Who is it?”

He meets my eyes darkly as he answers, “It’s Gold.”

* * *

I pick up Regina on the way to Gold’s shop. This time she makes no protest as I burst into her office, the look on my face telling her everything she needs to know. She’s still eyeing me with concern as I pull up in front of Gold’s, the sunlight from the crisp fall day slanting across her face. I force myself not to look at her, even though I know it would bring me comfort. I need to focus on this, on what’s waiting for me in that shop. On that fact that my prime suspect has unequivocally been eliminated from suspicion. I take a breath, my fingers gripping the steering wheel tightly before I let go and step out of the cruiser. Regina does the same, her heels clicking sharply on the pavement as we approach. 

David has official-looking crime scene tape over the door and it makes this feel less real somehow. We don’t usually go for things like this in Storybrooke, and I feel like I’m in a crime show as I duck under the tape. Maybe I just don’t want it to be real. The air is close and stuffy inside, but I shut the door behind us to keep out any curious townsfolk. There’s a musty smell in the air, like aged wood and old paper. 

“He’s over here,” David tells me, gesturing with his head toward the back room. 

Regina and I exchange a glance and I have to fight down the urge to reach for her hand as I wind my way through the glass countertops of antiquities and push my way into his office. It’s bigger than I thought, full of shelves of things that look like they’re waiting to be appraised. A snow globe catches my eye as I walk past, the figures skating across the ice looking eerily life-like. Knowing Gold, they might just be. I finally see him standing in the corner, and he looks like another lifelike figurine up for sale.

He’s standing rigidly with his arms in the air, ready to cast a spell of defense. A spell that came too late. “Shit,” I mutter, my eyes taking in his frozen form. He may not be my favorite person, but even I wouldn’t wish this on him. I don’t think I’d wish this on anybody. Regina comes to stand next to me, her red lips drawn into a frown. 

“I’d have to concur,” she muses. 

I can feel the presence of this thing, or at least the remnants of it, without even having to try now. Either I’m getting better at this, or it’s getting stronger. The air feels damp with its oppressive, caustic weight. I wrinkle my nose as I take a step closer to Gold. “Are you feeling this?” I ask over my shoulder. 

Regina nods. “Dark magic.” I shiver and force the nausea aside, stepping closer to Gold. “Emma, be careful. We don’t need a repeat of the forest.”

“I will, I’m not going to touch anything.” She still seems hesitant as I step forward, her fingers clenched at her sides like she wants to pull me back, but she doesn’t stop me. I take a close look at Gold, and just like Blue, everything about him right down to his seriously gross nose hairs, is petrified like rock. It’s incredibly creepy to see those penetrating eyes of his staring at me, unblinking. “Can he…?” I look over my shoulder at Regina, who’s standing nearly as rigidly as Gold as she watches me. “Is he aware of this?”

“I don’t think so,” she answers after a moment. “Still, now might be a great time to air your grievances uninterrupted, just in case.”

“ _ Regina, _ ” I scoff, though I have to stop myself from laughing. “Hey, he’s got paper in his hands, just like Blue did.”

“What are the chances you think you can get at it without it bursting into flames?” she muses.

“Well, I could try to -” A soft clicking sound cuts off our conversation as I whip my head back towards Gold. It sounded like something fell off him and hit the floor. “I thought you said you weren’t going to touch anything,” Regina scolds. 

“I didn’t!”

I look down and see there’s a small black button lying on the ground next to Gold’s feet. “Do  _ not _ touch that,” Regina warns, quickly moving to stand next to me.

“Yeah, it’s not my first day on the job,” I mutter with irritation. “Where did it come from?”

“Nowhere good,” she replies darkly. “It’s obviously a trap. Here,” she reaches out, her magic forming a soft, lavender sphere around it. I hold out an evidence bag and she lets it fall inside. “We can study that back at my vault.”

“Right,” I nod, standing. “But first I want to do a good sweep of the shop. My deputies are already going through his CCTV and interviewing everyone in his datebook. So glad old people still keep those things around.”

“Hey,” she says tartly. “I have one of those.”

I wink at her as I walk out of the room.

“I know.”

* * *

It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this frustrated.

Hours of scouring Gold’s shop, checking the CCTV (blank), talking to patrons, and nothing. Regina and I decide to skip our planned dinner and head to her vault to run a bunch of magical tests on the mystery button we found, but so far she’s tried three increasingly complicated spells with absolutely zero to show for it. Judging from the look on her face she’s a few seconds away from hurling the damn thing across the room, and I honestly can’t blame her. I feel like throwing some shit too. 

A growl of frustration snaps me back to the present, and I look up to see Regina raking her fingers through her hair. “Let me guess,” I sigh, sauntering over to where she’s standing with the offending thing rotating over a cauldron. “It didn’t work.”

“Obviously,” she seethes. 

I’d be a little more scared of her, but her hair is adorably mussed right now and it’s killing me. “Noted,” I nod, trying my best to look serious. “What are our other options?”

“Emma, there are none, this was it,” she folds her arms in exasperation.

“What? Are you serious?” My stomach drops. If this really is all she can do, then we have nothing. I sink into a seat at her stone table, cradling my head in my hands. “Shit.”

“Are you alright?” she asks gently. I hear her take a seat across from me but I can’t bring myself to face her right now.

“What am I supposed to do?” I ask her, my voice muffled through my hands. “How am I supposed to fix this?”

She doesn’t answer for a while, and I don’t really expect her to. The candles are sputtering around us as I try to control my breathing and figure out a plan. Only so far I can think of nothing, and the knots in my stomach are getting tighter. “Emma,” Regina’s voice interrupts my internal meltdown. I don't know when she started calling me by my first name, but I know that I swoon pathetically every single time she says it. "Honestly, would you snap out of it?"

I lift my head in surprise. “What?”

She arches an eyebrow. “Just because you’re the Sheriff does not mean you are personally responsible for everything that happens in this godforsaken town. You’re doing your best, which - as the mayor and a resident - is all anyone can ask of you. Now quit moping and let’s move on.”

I blink at her in surprise. “I - yeah, okay.” Something about her matter of fact delivery is apparently exactly what I needed. Feeling shitty about myself isn’t going to fix this. I blow out a breath and sit up straight, shoving my self-doubt aside. “Got any suggestions?”

“Well,” she tilts her chin. “There is one more spell I can try.”

“I thought you said you’d done everything!”

“Everything a person with good sense would do, yes!” she snaps. “However, there is one more thing I can think of that could be successful. It’s rather technical, and not exactly meant to work in this type of scenario. But with a few tweaks…” she trails off thoughtfully, tapping her red nails against her chin. “Yes, it might work.” My face breaks into a grin and she glares at me.

“ _ Might _ , got it, no guarantees,” I nod, beaming. “Copy that.”

She rolls her eyes and gets to her feet. “If this works it will create a sort of compass that will direct us to the creator of that button,” she explains. “The adjustments I’ll need to make could cause the magic to be volatile, especially given what we're dealing with, so stay out of the way when I tell you to.”

“Wait,” I ask, frowning. “Is this going to be dangerous?”

“Not for you,” she says casually, pulling down various jars from her shelves, everything neatly labeled with her perfect, flowing handwriting. She has to reach up on her tiptoes to reach the ones on the top shelf and the sight is so adorable it’s almost enough to distract me from her obvious avoidance of the question.

“Regina.” I get up and walk to her, grasping her by the shoulder. “Hey.” She turns to face me, her expression guarded. “How dangerous is this?”

She shifts in place before meeting my eyes. “It might cause a small flare-up of magic that could result in moderate injury.” My eyes widen but she presses on like it’s nothing. “However, I believe I’m skilled enough to handle it, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Regina,” I put my hands on both her shoulders. “I appreciate the offer, but I’m not willing to risk you getting hurt.”

She frowns, confusion written on her features. The candle light is bending the shadows on her face, and I realize how close we're standing, how warm her skin is on my fingertips. I take a step back as she says, “I don’t understand, I thought you wanted to try this.”

“Well yeah,” I shrug, shaking my head. “But your safety is more important.”

Something shifts behind her eyes and her mouth drops open a little in what looks like surprise. Her gaze drops to my mouth for a second, causing a riot of warmth in my gut, before returning to meet my own. “I see,” she responds after a brief silence. “Well.” She clears her throat. “I appreciate that but I’ll be careful. I think we should try it.”

“Are you sure?” I ask seriously. If her reaction to nearly being choked to death on foliage is any indication, she doesn’t exactly take her own wellbeing as seriously as I’d like. 

“Of course I’m sure,” she answers frankly. Eyeing her for another long moment, I eventually nod and step aside, watching as she meticulously measures out various mysterious substances. 

“Is the hand waving actually necessary, or are you just being dramatic?” I muse, leaning against the wall with my arms crossed. 

“Hush,” she dismisses me. “Besides, you’d know the answer to that if you actually listened in our magic lessons instead of staring at my mouth.” My own mouth drops open in horror and she smirks viciously. I can't tell if she's flirting with me, or purposely messing with my head simply because she knows she can. With Regina Mills, it could easily be both. Luckily she saves me from melting into the earth’s core by ordering me around, though I'm a little unsteady as I pass her various things. Watching her work, so focused, her brows drawn together as she meticulously follows her spell book, definitely isn't helping this feeling of unbalance. “Alright," she says with finality. "I’m going to make an attempt at this locating spell. Stand well back.”

I take a step away and watch as she mutters under her breath, the cauldron she’s using emanating a soft, purple glow. She eventually stops and the glow fades. “Is that it?” I ask. The whole thing seemed kind of anticlimactic. “Did it work?”

Before she can answer, I feel a rush of energy and instinctively grab her by the back of her shirt and yank her backwards, spinning us around to shield her with my body as I throw up a magical barrier. A dark, ferocious splash of magic erupts from the cauldron and slams against the shield I’ve thrown up, emitting an ear-piercing, blood curdling shriek. It slides thickly down the translucent white of my magic, forming odd shapes of screaming, agonized faces as it does so.

“Jesus Christ,” I pant, my arms still wrapped tightly around Regina.

I feel her take a deep breath, her arms clutching mine, as she also watches the slow descent of dark magic sliding down my shield. It starts to dissipate as it hits the ground, the harsh screams fading. The two of us stare at the empty space for a beat before she says nonchalantly, “ _ Now,  _ it worked.”

“Are you serious, Regina?!” I sputter, releasing her. She spins around to face me tensely, her eyes hard. “You said this had the potential for ‘moderate injury’, that could have  _ killed  _ you!”

Her nostrils flare as she steps towards me, furious. “How in the hell would you know that, everything you know about magic you learned from children’s books! I could have handled this perfectly well on my own!”

I’m so furious I want to shake her. The terror of what might have happened if that eruption had hit her makes me feel nauseated. “Tell me what part of  _ that, _ ” I point aggressively at the floor where a remnant of the black magic is sizzling a hole in the concrete, “looks moderate to you.” I step closer and she doesn’t back away, her eyes narrowing. “ _ Why _ are you being so reckless?!”

“Perhaps because I’m trying to help you!” she snarls, her eyes sparkling with fury. “And perhaps because if we don’t figure this thing out then rocks through my windows will be the least of my problems,” she adds tensely. “Half the town already thinks I’m behind this!”

“Why didn’t you say something, then?!” I sputter with exasperation. “You said you’d tell me if you were having problems!”

“I said  _ perhaps  _ I’d tell you, Emma. It’s not up to you to solve all of my problems. And if you had let me handle this as I’d asked instead of  _ insisting _ on saving the day like the utter Charming that you are, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now!”

For some reason it’s that - the simple truth of who I am - shoved in my face like an insult that causes me to lose my temper. “You know what? You can go to hell, Regina,” I answer calmly, my voice cool with fury. “I don’t need your fucking help anymore.” Her face is dark with emotion as I spin on my heel and storm out of the basement, eyes filling with tears of frustration. I stupidly hope she’ll call me back, that she’ll stop me so we can apologize to each other and go back to facing this terror together. 

She doesn’t. 

* * *

The burn of whiskey hits the back of my throat, ice clicking against my teeth as I take another deep sip from the tumbler. Even after a long run to clear my head and a scalding shower, I’m still trying to get the image of those magical, agonized faces out of my mind. This entire week has been like a damn Stephen King novel. I’m just waiting for the walls to start bleeding or something. It’s been awhile since I’ve felt the need to drink alone, but considering the events of the last few days, and especially the last few hours, I’d say I’ve earned it.

I can’t stop thinking about Regina, about what I said to her, and the look on her face when I did. All this time I’ve been wanting to show her that she can trust me, that I won’t hurt her like other people have. And now I’ve screwed everything up so badly. 

I’m so mad at myself because I know that when she’s scared or backed into a corner, she turns into a defensive asshole. And I also know that if I’d just stayed calm and realized that she was probably terrified - not just from what happened but from whatever the townspeople are threatening her with - then I could have helped her instead of making things worse.

I’m such an idiot.

I let her push my buttons and I should know better than that. She was right after all, I am a Charming. I guess it’s just a sensitive topic right now. Especially since she tends to hate them all. 

Us all. 

Her calling me that just made me feel like it’s yet another reason she’s never going to want me in the way I want her, but none of that is her fault. I reach for my phone and pull up our text messages, crafting about ten different apologies and deleting them all. 

I throw my phone down in frustration, running my fingers through my hair as I slam the last of my drink. I’ll talk to her tomorrow, in person. If she doesn’t want to see me, well too damn bad. I’m going to fix this. 

I’m going to fix all of it.

* * *

My eyes snap open at 3:00am, the red digits of my alarm clock bright as my eyes adjust to the darkness of the room. Everything is still and silent, but something feels off. I feel a presence. My heart rate spikes as I sit up quickly, swinging my legs over the edge of my bed and scraping my hair back out of my eyes. 

“Hello?” I call out, reaching for my gun. I keep it holstered next to my bed, the cool weight of it a comfort as I creep towards my bedroom door. I do a full sweep of the house, flipping the lights on as I enter each room with a racing heart, and find nothing. But as I return to my bedroom and shut off the light, placing my gun back in its holster, I can’t quite bring myself to crawl back into bed. I feel alert, like alarm bells are going off in my head. Something is wrong. Something is  _ here.  _ I just can’t see it. 

A soft noise has my eyes snapping to the dark corner of my room, the light I left on in the hall not quite bright enough to reach. Frozen, I stare at the darkness, and whatever is in that corner stares right back at me. I can feel its eyes drilling into me, and my breathing is reaching near-panic levels as I wait for whatever is watching me to emerge. A soft clicking noise makes me jump, and I watch transfixed in horror as a small black button rolls out from the corner of the room. The exact same black button that is absolutely supposed to be mid-spell in Regina’s vault. I’m frozen with fear as I watch it slowly make its way to my feet, where it spins in place before dropping on its side. 

“Where are you?!” I call out, though I'm so terrified it comes out as a strangled whisper. I step further into the room, squaring my shoulders. “If you want to fight me then let’s do this, okay?” I lunge forward and turn on my bedside lamp, the soft yellow light swallowing up the darkness. The corner of the room is empty, but the button resting at my feet tells me that I’m not imagining things. 

I hear Regina’s voice in my head telling me to "see feelingly", so I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I can hear the kitchen sink dripping softly. I can feel the uneven, aged hardwood under my bare feet. And there - something. A presence. I open my eyes and turn in the direction that I felt it, and I’m facing not the corner of the room, but my window. Walking cautiously toward it, I look out to the ground below. I’m only two stories up, close enough that I can clearly see Regina standing in my backyard, staring up at my window. It looks windy out, her dark hair being pulled across her face as she looks up at me with blank eyes. 

“Regina?!” I push open my window, the icy night air making my hair flare out behind me as I call out to her. She continues to stare up at me, like she doesn’t even see me. “Regina!” I call again. She turns in place and starts to walk away, heading into the trees at the edge of the property line. “Hey - wait! Fuck,” I pull my head back inside and race to get dressed, but flashes of her gasping for breath on the forest floor come bubbling to the surface of my mind, and I realize I don’t have the time. I launch myself out of my front door, bare feet slapping on the outside landing as I race down the stairs in a tank top and underwear. It’s freezing out, the chilly air biting at my bare thighs as I round the side of my apartment building and head in the direction of Regina.

I just make out the sight of her retreating back as she disappears into the tree line and I race in that direction. It’s starting to rain, the chilly drops slanting into my eyes as I push my way through the dense forest. “Regina!” my voice echoes strangely around me, loud and stretched somehow. I can see her again, the side of her face, and then a flash of her fingertips in the trees, and I’m stumbling after her. The wet roots from the trees around me are practically pulling at my legs, tripping me over and over as I struggle to keep up. I don’t know how far I’ve run, the panic overtaking my senses. I’m shivering with cold and adrenaline, my wet hair plastered to my head, legs streaked with mud as I wade deeper into the forest. The trees are so dense now, the brambles so thick that I can’t seem to make any progress anymore.

And then a voice in the back of my head, so quiet at first I almost don’t hear it, reminds me -  _ there is no forest behind my apartment building.  _ There’s a row of trees that is about five yards deep, and then a parking lot. So where the hell am I?! I can’t see Regina anymore, and I spin in place as the forest presses down at me from all sides. The trees are all snarling roots and thick, dark trunks. They look misshapen, like they’ve swallowed something enormous. Human-sized. The roots are crawling towards me now, I can hear their wet snapping sound as they move through the damp earth. I can feel the trees, feel their hate, their hunger. I know what they want.

Refusing to let the panic win, I close my eyes and reach again for my magic, and it’s easier this time. I find it quicker and it spills out of me faster, warming me against the cold night. It gets so bright that I can’t see, my eyes squinting shut in the glare, and when I open them again Regina is standing in front of me.

The real one this time. 

She’s in a housecoat and her hair is wet with rain, her fingers digging into my biceps. “Emma!? Can you hear me?” She shakes me hard, and I come to my senses like I’ve been slapped. The stinging on my cheek makes me think that maybe I have been. I look around, blinking in the hammering rain. We’re in her backyard. 

“Regina?” I say in disbelief, shivering hard. 

“What happened?” she asks me.

I shake my head, my thoughts confused. I don’t know what’s real anymore. I realize I’m clutching something in my hand and I bring my closed fist up between us. Regina watches with wide eyes, rain dripping off the ends of her hair, as I uncurl my freezing fingers and reveal a small black button in my outstretched palm.

“Regina, I think I’m going crazy,” I answer in a strained voice. Her gaze is dark with concern. 

She reaches her hand out and hovers it over my open palm. I feel a warm, tingling sensation and look down to see the button has disappeared. For now. “Come on, let’s get you inside.” She guides me toward the house, her hand warm on my back through my soaking shirt. I wait, dripping and shivering in the hall, while she moves her hand in an intricate motion over the threshold to cast what I’m assuming is a powerful protection spell. The feeling of being warm inside, with Regina’s magic warding off whatever is out there helps me to feel a little grounded. “Here,” she says softly, handing me a soft blanket. She wraps it around my shoulders, her fingertips lightly sliding against my neck to pull out my wet hair and rest it on top of the blanket. 

I feel like a child as she leads me, barefoot and bundled up, into the kitchen and shuffles me onto a stool at the kitchen counter. “I’m making you some tea,” she says firmly, using her magic to bring the kettle to an instant, rolling boil. 

“Got anything stronger?” I joke weakly. She doesn’t respond but I see her pull her good bourbon from the cupboard above the stove, pouring a healthy amount into the steaming mug of water, adding in a generous amount of honey and a slice of lemon. After a brief hesitation she makes a second one for herself. She turns and sets one of the mugs gently in front of me, her eyes full of concern. I realize how I must look, wet and half-naked, covered in mud, with cuts and scratches streaking down my legs. It’s making me feel embarrassed to be under her scrutinizing gaze, the feeling uncomfortably familiar to times when I was in foster care. Times where adults would look at me strangely, where I could almost hear them thinking  _ what is wrong with you? why are you like this?  _ I find my chin trembling as I try to control this spiral of thoughts in my head.

“Emma,” she says softly, pushing the mug closer to me. I grasp it, the ceramic so warm it stings my freezing hands. “What happened?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know. I don’t know what happened, I don’t know how I got here.” I take a ragged breath and she reaches out and clasps my freezing fingers where they’re wrapped around the mug. The feeling grounds me, reminds me that I’m not a kid. And that I’m the goddamn Sheriff. I have a job to do.

“Emma, tell me what you remember.”

“Something woke me up,” I start slowly. She nods, leaning forward on her elbows and listening intently, sipping her drink from time to time as I tell her everything I can remember, trying to piece together the flashes of memory. 

When I’m done I feel lighter, my head clearer. I take a sip of the hot toddy and feel it warming me from the inside out. “It followed you,” she says softly, almost to herself. “It followed you from the vault today, it must have.”

A shiver runs down my spine that has nothing to do with my wet clothes. “What, how? I mean, I thought I shielded us from that stuff that came out of the cauldron. And you took so many precautions.”

“Yes,” she muses, her eyes dark. “But clearly that wasn’t enough. And now it knows we’re hunting it,” she turns to me, her expression unreadable as she’s backlit by the light from the stove. “And now it’s hunting us, too.”

_ “What is?” _

Henry’s voice pulls us both from our intense conversation. He’s standing at the kitchen doorway looking strangely awake considering it’s 4:15am, but the bags under his eyes tell me maybe he’s still not sleeping. “Hey kid,” I say gently. 

He ignores my greeting, turning to Regina. “Was it Leroy again?”

I glance at Regina whose posture has stiffened, before answering him myself. “No, I just ran into a bit of a problem with this thing we’re after, that’s all.” He looks me up and down, my appearance making it pretty damn clear that it was more than just “a bit of a problem.” 

“The thing that got Blue?” His voice sounds calm, but his knuckles are white from how hard he’s clutching the doorframe.

“Henry,” Regina says gently, holding out an arm to him. He doesn’t come to her, remaining tensely in the doorway, and she eventually drops it at her side. “Darling, what we’re dealing with is rather powerful but we can handle it.”

“You’d tell me if it was really bad though, right?” His eyes go from Regina to me and back again. “And if anything weird was happening?”

“Weird like what?” I ask him, frowning.

“I don’t know,” he shakes his head, rubbing his eyes. He sounds so helpless it breaks my heart, and Regina and I exchange a glance.

“Are you sure you’re alright, sweetheart?” Regina asks, eyeing him with concern.

“Yeah,” he nods, crossing his arms. “Just weird dreams I guess.”

“Would you like a cup of tea?” she asks him. 

“No thanks,” he shakes his head. I can see as he steps a little further into the kitchen how pale he is, how dark the circles are under his eyes. This must be freaking him out more than I realized. I get up, dropping the blanket on the chair, and walk over to pull him against me. My insides melt at how heavily he leans into me.

“Listen kid,” I tell him softly. “I know this is scary. But we’ve fought scary things before, right?” He nods against me. “This is no different. And we won’t keep you in the dark. We’ll let you know what you need to know to stay safe, okay?”

“Okay,” he says quietly. He lets me go and shuffles to Regina, giving her a tight squeeze. “I’m gonna go back to sleep,” he mumbles. 

We both say goodnight as he makes his way upstairs, Regina and I again exchanging concerned glances. She glances at the clock. “Why don’t you take a hot shower and then go sleep for a few hours in the guest room? I’ll leave something dry for you to wear.” It’s nearly four am, and I can feel the exhaustion weighing my limbs as I realize the time. 

“Sure, thanks.” I head upstairs to the bathroom, showering the sticky, black mud from my body, watching it spiral slowly down the drain as I pull brambles from my hair. By the time I dry off and change into the dry sweats and tank top Regina left for me, my body feels like I’ve run a marathon. My calves ache as I walk across the hall into the guest room where Regina is turning down the bed. 

“How are you feeling?” she asks a little stiffly, hooking her hair behind an ear. She’s watching me with concern, but I can tell she’s trying to hide it. 

“Checking up on me?” I ask, smirking.

She rolls her eyes. “I take it this means you’re feeling better, then.”

I sigh, shutting the door behind me so we don’t wake Henry. “Honestly, I feel fine. Just tired. And slightly concerned I’m being haunted by a shirt button, but you know. No big deal.”

She nods distractedly, adjusting a pillow on the bed unnecessarily. “I’ll try to get to the bottom of things in the morning.” I’m watching her with what I can only assume is open affection as she fidgets with the bedspread. 

“Regina,” I say softly, stepping towards her. 

“We should both get some rest,” she cuts me off, moving to walk past me. I stop her with a hand on her arm and she looks up at me with a guarded look in her eyes.

“Regina, I’m really sorry.” I release my grip on her but take another step closer, the carpet so soft on my torn up feet. “I shouldn't have talked to you like that, or taken off like I did. Old habits, I guess.” She’s watching me closely, her big dark eyes locked on mine. “I was really scared. I  _ am  _ really scared. About everything, but mostly that you’re going to get hurt by being a stubborn ass.” She snorts a little, her mouth pulling into a soft smirk, and my stomach clenches. Her hair is still damp, curling at the ends from being out in the rain. I reach out and tuck her wet hair behind her ear. “Listen, I care about you okay?” I confess. As much as it costs me to admit even that to her, I can’t say that I regret it when her eyes immediately soften, and I can see her breath hitch ever so slightly. “And I guess I just get protective about the people I care about.” I sigh, running my fingers through my own wet hair. “But if it helps, I will try to stop being such a... _ Charming _ about it.” She really smiles this time, and I feel like I might pass out from the sight of it. 

“Well,” she says softly, stepping further into my space. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt for me to be a little more careful in the future.” She takes a breath, wrapping her housecoat tighter around herself. “And I may not have needed saving but I can’t deny that your actions were rather gallant,” she adds. “So - thank you.”

“Any time,” I answer softly. I’m finding it hard to form words right now with how close she’s standing to me. With how beautiful she looks in the low light. My fingers are itching to reach out and tug on the sash to her housecoat, to slide my fingers around her waist and pull her hips against mine. 

“We should get some sleep,” she says in a near-whisper. Her voice sounds husky and I can see the pulse in her neck is beating rapidly. “Goodnight, Emma.”

“Goodnight, Regina,” I answer. She takes another second to move, but she does, tearing her gaze from mine and stepping around me to head for the door. My eyes track her movements closely, and I have to stop myself from reaching out and grabbing her wrist, pulling her back onto the bed with me. She pauses with her hand on the doorknob and turns to me. 

“And Emma,” she adds, looking me in the eye. “You may be a Charming, but they aren’t all bad.” She smirks again in that way that devastates me. “They managed to make you, after all.” With that, she pulls open the door and leaves, shutting it softly behind her.

I flop backwards onto the bed with my hands clamped over my face. If this thing we’re hunting doesn’t kill me, Regina Mills just fucking might.

* * *

“Do I have to come?”

“Yes, young man, for the third time, you  _ do  _ have to come to the vault.”

Henry sighs heavily as he follows grumpily behind Regina and I, his shoes crunching on the freshly fallen leaves. “I have school you know, isn’t this child abuse or something?”

Regina scoffs. “Be sure to file your complaints with the Mayor’s office.”

“Or come by and talk to the Sheriff,” I turn around to wink at him.

He groans. “So not funny. I have a book report due today.”

“Henry,” I say gently, stopping in front of him. He looks a bit wrecked, and I’m starting to think maybe these dreams of his are even worse than he’s letting on. “We want to keep you safe, okay? So even though I know you want to get to school early - which, nerd by the way.” Regina clicks her tongue but says nothing. “We need to escort you to and from school for the time being. This shouldn’t take long. Okay?”

His posture relaxes a little as he nods. “Okay.”

“Good. Now quit whining and keep up.”

Regina sighs at my parenting as the three of us head into the vault. The cauldron is simmering softly with the Haunted Button as I’ve started calling it floating above. “So it’s still here,” I say thoughtfully. “Wherever this monster is, it must be looking pretty disheveled right now with all these missing buttons,” I snort.

Both of the Mills roll their eyes at me. “Henry, stay with your mother,” Regina orders. “Though with her sense of humor, you may wish to risk the danger.”

“Very funny,” I glare.

Regina flashes me a wry smile that has my stomach clenching. I wrap an arm around Henry and pull him close, pulling up a shield in front of us like Regina and I agreed. She approaches the cauldron carefully and closes her eyes, holding her hands in front of it. The button shifts and widens into a flat disc, vaguely compass shaped, a notch appearing on one side. The three of us watch cautiously as it spins in place, faster and faster, until it lurches drunkenly across the room before landing at mine and Henry's feet. It shivers before flopping once, pathetically, and then stills completely. 

Regina and I meet eyes across the room. “Well, fuck.”

“Emma,” she sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Right, sorry,” I wince, clamping my hands over Henry’s ears.

“A little late, mom,” he laughs. 

Regina sighs, clearing up the concoction she’d made in the cauldron before she ushers us towards the stairs. “Come along, you two, let’s go.”

“What, that’s it?” I ask as she shuffles us forward.

“For now,” she replies. We make our way out of the vault and into the graveyard, the chill morning air grasping at the ends of my hair. Henry ducks his chin further into the scarf wound around his neck and heads for the car while Regina and I follow more slowly behind. She must see how disappointed I look because she stops, the morning sun lighting up her hair as she wraps her fingers around my arm and brings me to a stop. “Do try not to look as though someone’s run over your puppy, Sheriff Swan.”

“I do  _ not  _ look like that,” I grumble childishly. 

She reaches out and grasps my chin with her fingers, her sharp nails pressing gently into my skin. My eyes widen in surprise and I feel my heart start to hammer in my chest as she watches me closely. I don’t know if she’s going to pull me into a kiss or chew me out - and that is exactly what I love about her. “Since when exactly do you give up so easily?” she chides. Okay, the second one then. But that’s almost as fun. I listen intently as she keeps a firm grip on my face. “Usually if anything you’re irritatingly hopeful - something I blame your mother for,” she adds haughtily. “So what’s so different now?”

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “Usually I know what I’m up against. I mean - how am I supposed to kick ass when I don’t even know what I’m fighting?”

“By doing exactly what you’re doing,” Regina answers, her grip on my face tightening slightly. “Reviewing the evidence, doing your research. It may be boring, but you can’t punch your way through every problem in life.”

I sigh, some of the stress I’ve been carrying leaving my shoulders. “You may be on to something there. I’ll go over everything again. Maybe we missed something that will crack this case wide open.”

She smiles smugly, releasing my chin and patting my cheek patronizingly. “There’s that grating optimism I so adore.”

I break into an idiotic grin at the accidental confession. “You  _ adore  _ me? Mayor Mills, I had no idea!” 

She growls, her cheeks tinged with pink, and pushes me hard in the shoulder as she walks at a brisk pace to the car. I smile to myself as I follow behind her, the dry leaves crunching under my feet, and a new feeling of hope buoyant in my chest.

* * *

“Emma, are you asleep?”

I start awake, sitting bolt upright to see Snow watching me with concern. She’d asked me to meet her for lunch at Granny’s since we’ve both been so busy, and apparently I used the opportunity to pass out face down next to the syrup. “No! Not sleeping,” I answer, wiping a sticky spot from my cheek with my sleeve.

She smiles softly, sinking into the booth across from me. “Are you alright, sweetheart?”

The pet name makes me feel equal parts discomfort and warmth, and the unsettling combo helps to wake me up even more. I reach out and take a deep gulp from my coffee mug before signaling to Granny to fill ‘er up. “I’m fine,” I answer evasively. “Just tired.”

She sets a woven basket - seriously could she at least  _ try  _ not to be such a fairytale character? - down on the booth next to her and reaches out to grasp my hand. I feel my throat getting a little tight at the warm gesture. I’m still not good at this stuff - being a daughter. “Are you not sleeping?” she asks. Her blue eyes are watching me closely, concern evident on her face.

I shrug and pull my hands away as Granny comes over to top up my coffee, taking both of our orders. “Kind of,” I answer. After she watches me for a minute I confess. “Not really.”

“Emma, you’re working too hard. You need to come over and let me get some food into you, and take a rest.”

“Sure,” I answer noncommittally.

“I’m sorry we haven’t seen much of each other lately, Emma. Your brother isn’t sleeping either, and he’s teething too.” She shakes her head and I feel a cold wave of emotion crash through my body. “He keeps me pretty busy these days.”

“Yeah, no I get it,” I answer. I look out the window, fighting the stupid idiot tears that are starting to form in my eyes. I hate how difficult it is for me to think about my little brother. I hate how it makes me avoid my parents. It’s just too much right now, on top of everything. I’ll deal with it eventually. Maybe.

“Well don’t feel like you can’t drop by,” she adds warmly. “It may be boring but you’re always welcome.”

“I will,” I answer. “Soon.” I force myself to meet her eyes and pull a tight smile across my face.

She sighs, leaning back. “Alright. I’ll take it.” Reaching for the basket, she places it on the table and starts pulling out crafting supplies. 

“What...is this?” I ask, watching her pull out two lethal-looking pairs of paper shears. 

“Halloween decorations!” she answers gleefully. “We’re going to have a party. I want you to come, of course. We’re inviting the whole town, actually!”

“Of course you are,” I smile for real this time.

“What with work and the baby it’s been hard to find time to plan, so I was hoping you’d help me while we have lunch,” she adds, thrusting the massive shears in my hands. We get to work cutting the invitations into the various shapes she’s mapped out, stealing bites of lunch in between the arts-and-crafts, and I manage to set aside all my annoying hang ups about my family and just enjoy the time with her.

“Do you think the invitations are a little too on the nose?” she asks, stacking our work neatly into piles. There are even numbers of cat, pumpkin, and gravestone-shaped invites and she’s eyeing them with concern. “I wonder if my theme is a bit too childish.”

“I think they’re great, but I don’t know a lot about party planning,” I reply, taking the opportunity to eat a few fries. 

“I suppose not,” she agrees. “Planning balls used to be one of my favorite things,” she adds with a wistful sigh. “I wish you’d been able to come to even one.” I try to imagine myself in a ballgown, sweeping across the dance floor with someone. Someone with dark red lips and insane cleavage. “I was thinking maybe we should roll them up,” Snow muses, grasping the pumpkin-shaped card stock and rolling it tightly. She ties it with a piece of twine and holds it up, scrutinizing. I would love to know what exactly her standards are for appropriate card stock presentation.

I open my mouth to reply when a realization hits me like a sledgehammer. “OH my god,” I sit upright. 

“What?” she asks in confusion. I’m frantically pulling my coat on, shoving my arms into the sleeves and then realizing I’m still holding my giant scissors. I shove them in my coat pocket and yank my coat on, scrambling to leave the booth. “Emma, what is it?!”

“You just made me realize something that could solve this whole thing!” I answer excitedly. “Thank you,” I add, leaning down to kiss her cheek, “I have to go.” She beams at me, wrapping her arms around me tightly enough that it makes me temporarily forget the urgency of the moment. I hug her back, breathing her in, trying to let go of all the other feelings that come up when I’m with her. “I’ll call you later?” I offer, pulling away.

Her eyes look a little damp as she nods. “Yes, please. Go, solve your case!”

I grin and run out of Granny’s racing down the street towards my apartment, dialing Regina’s number at the same time. 

_ “Yes, Sheriff?”  _ she answers, her warm voice knifing me in the gut.

“Meet me at my place,” I pant. “I think I might have something.”

I round the corner to my building to see Regina standing in front of my three story walkup looking irritated. “What took you so long?” she barks, arms crossed.

“Wh - it took me like two minutes to get here?!”

“Yes, my point exactly. You sounded so out of breath on the phone I thought it was urgent so I magicked over.”

“It  _ is  _ urgent, come on,” I push past her and race up the stairs, leading her up to my apartment door. She shuts the door behind us as I rush into my room, and it takes me approximately one second to regret asking her to come over without thinking things through. My bed is unmade, clothes littering the floor. “Uh, excuse the mess,” I smile sheepishly. She rolls her eyes as I rip open my bedside table and pull out a book, hoping she didn’t happen to see the vibrator that was resting on top of it.

I slam the drawer shut quickly and turn back to her, thrusting the book into her hands. She looks at it in confusion. “This is mine,” she says, her thumb sweeping across the cover. It’s one of her books on magic from the vault. 

“Yes,” I answer, bracing myself. “You lent it to me. A year ago.” She looks up at me, her eyes lethal. “I tried to get through it but I couldn’t, and then I sort of...forgot about it.” Tentatively, because the look she’s giving me is nothing less than terrifying, I step forward and open the book to the last page I was reading nearly twelve months ago. “This whole time something about this thing has felt... _ familiar  _ to me, and I couldn’t place it. And then I remembered when I was with Snow today that the last entry I read might just be exactly what we’re looking for. It was the scrolls of parchment we found in their hands that made me remember.”

She closes her eyes as she asks, “Do you mean to tell me that you’ve had the answer to this entire mystery of ours in your bedside table next to your sex toys  _ all along _ ?” She looks like she’s on the verge of a migraine.

“Oh god I’m the worst Sheriff of all time, aren’t I?” I sink down on the bed, my head in my hands. 

I hear her sigh and feel her weight dip the mattress as she sits next to me. “No, you aren’t. And now is not the time for a pity party, Emma. Besides, I’ve read this myself -  _ actually _ read it, unlike someone,” she adds. I look over at her and she looks enraged, but not at me. “I should have remembered this.”

I pull the book from her hands and slide it into my lap. “Look, let’s just forgive ourselves for this minor infraction and move on. We found it eventually.”

“Very well,” she answers stiffly. “Let’s hear it.”

I squint at the page, the writing old fashioned, and so cramped and tiny it makes my eyes ache. Definitely starting to remember why it was such a snooze fest. “It says...what is that? Is that an L? An F, maybe?” 

“Oh for the love of - here, let me,” she growls, leaning into my space. Her hair brushes my cheek as she moves closer and I really, really have to focus on anything other than the fact that we’re sitting on my bed. “ _ A Lich is a powerful, dark entity _ ,” she starts to read. “ _ The corporeal form of a dark sorcerer that has given up their mortal body in exchange for eternal life. The lich survives by feeding on the souls of others, and cannot be killed unless its phylactery is located and destroyed _ .”

“What the hell is a phylactery?”

“It’s a powerful magical object,” she answers, looking up at me with bright eyes. “It’s something that its essence lives inside of. They can be made of anything, but often they’re a metal box full of strips of  _ parchment  _ with spells written on them, spells they also use against their victims!” She beams, grabbing the sides of my face. “Emma this is it, it has to be, I could  _ kiss  _ you right now!”

My mouth drops open in surprise, heart slamming in my chest. Her fingers are buried in my hair, our faces only inches away from each other. She seems to realize what she’s said, her cheeks flushing, but she doesn’t release her hold on my face. Her eyes drop to my mouth for a second, and now there is absolutely no ignoring the fact that we are sitting on my fucking bed. My body flares with heat as I reach up and put my hand on her wrist, trying to control my breathing. She leans in a little and my breath hitches, her eyes roving over my face, like she's waiting for me to tell her to stop. But I don't, of course I don't, because this is everything I want. She leans in a little and my grip on her wrist tightens, like I need to feel her to know that this is real. I close my eyes as I lean in closer, but instead of the feeling of her mouth on mine, I feel her pulling her hand from my face abruptly. I blink at her in surprise, devastation and confusion warring on my face as she looks past me.

“I’m sorry,” I say in a whisper, moving back from her as quickly as I can. For some reason apologizing seems to be the only thing that comes to mind, although I don’t know what it is I did wrong. 

“Emma, no, it’s not that,” she replies, acknowledging the moment without actually acknowledging it. “Do you feel that?” she asks, looking past my shoulder. 

“Uh, maybe you can be more specific,” I answer in confusion, following her gaze to the head of my bed. I’m currently feeling about ten different things, and I’m not admitting to any of them until she does first. 

“There’s something here,” she answers vaguely. She moves forward on the bed, kneeling next to the headboard and reaching her arm into the gap between the bed and the wall. After a moment, she draws her hand back and pulls out a tiny doll. It looks like it’s made of straw, and something else, twisted and bound into a vaguely human shape.

“Is that my  _ hair _ ?!” I ask, horrified. Long strands of my hair look like they’re woven in with the pieces of straw, twisted together over and over. She comes back to sit next to me, turning the thing in her hands before looking up at me with worry on her face. “Regina, what is that thing?”

“A poppet,” she answers softly. “A talisman of sorts.” 

“What is it for?” I ask, my eyes fixated on it in horror. 

“I don’t know yet,” she answers. Her calm demeanor is actually starting to freak me out, because I think she’s trying very, very hard not to make me panic. “Have you been having trouble sleeping?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I answer, trying to tear my eyes from the seriously creepy figure.

“Nightmares?” she raises her eyebrows, questioning.

“Yes,” I answer again, looking up at her.

“You never said anything,” she says gently, her dark eyes softening. 

I shrug. “Those aren’t new things for me. They’ve been a little worse, but I figured it was just the stress.”

“Oh,” she answers, her eyes searching my face. “I didn’t know that.” I shift and look away from her, trying to shake the feeling of vulnerability. 

“It’s not a big deal,” I answer after a moment. “Regina - what aren’t you saying?” 

She looks up at me with a grim look in her eyes. “Stand up.”

I frown, sliding off the bed to stand in the middle of my room. She lowers herself to the ground, the poppet-thing still in her hand, and looks under the bed. I watch her in suspense, my skin crawling with revulsion as the head of that disgusting talisman watches me from her closed fingers. After a moment she sits back on her heels, her face serious. “Come help me move the bed.”

I don’t question why, just move to the head of the bed as she sets the doll down on my dresser and grasps the footboard. We slide the bed away from the wall, pushing it back to reveal some sort of markings on the floorboards. They’re symbols drawn in white chalk, with dirt scattered all around. “What the  _ fuck  _ is that?!” Regina doesn’t answer at first, her eyes focused on the symbols. “Regina!”

“You’ve been marked, Emma,” she answers. Her face is pale as she looks up at me. “This poppet, and the symbols. It’s coming for you next.”

“What?” I ask, breathless. My eyes flicker from her face to the floor and back. “But - we didn’t see anything like this in the forest, or in Gold’s shop?”

“No, but I have a feeling this may be just for you. Because you’re getting too close.” She crosses her arms, watching my reaction. 

“What do you think I should do?” I feel like I might pass out, my palms prickling with sweat.

“I think you should come and stay with me and Henry until we get this figured out.”

I step around the bed, walking closer to her. “I’m not putting you both at risk like that.”

She narrows her eyes, hands on her hips. “And I’m not letting you just stay here in your apartment like a sitting duck, Emma.”

“Then I’ll go somewhere else!”

“It doesn’t matter where you go, it already has a part of you,” she answers, picking up the doll and holding it up. The sunlight from the window catches the blonde strands of my hair.

“All the more reason for me to  _ not  _ be near you and Henry!” We’re nose-to-nose now, voices rising. 

“And you have the nerve to call  _ me _ a stubborn ass,” she snarls. “I am not letting you out of my  _ sight _ , Emma Swan, do you hear me?”

I open my mouth to reply, a rush of warmth surging through my veins, when the door to my bedroom slams shut. We both spin in place, Regina throwing her arms out in front of me, but nothing is there. “Shit,” I whisper. “Can you magic us out of here?”

“I’m trying,” she answers, her eyes still on the door. “It’s not working.” The light in the room dims and we both turn to see the sky outside is darkening rapidly. 

“What time is it?” I ask, stepping to the window. There’s a strong wind ripping through the power lines, the windowpane rattling in its frame.

“Two-thirty,” she answers.

“Well, this can’t be good.” I walk forward to try the door when something catches my eye in the mirror on my wall. There’s a man standing there. He’s in a three-piece suit with a bowler hat on, his face gaunt and hollow. We meet eyes in the mirror and he smiles warmly. 

“Hello,” I greet him, stepping closer.

“Who are you talking to, Emma?” Regina asks from behind me, her voice distant. I want to answer her, but I can’t look away.

_ Hello. _

His mouth isn’t moving, but I hear his voice in my head. It’s soft and warm. His smile is so wide. His lips are so red. 

“Who are you?” I ask, stepping closer to the mirror. A feeling of cold peace is blanketing my mind. I feel good. I feel calm.

I hear Regina calling my name, a thud in the distance. His eyes hold mine. They’re bottomless and glittering, as dark as a shiny, black button.  _ Help me,  _ he smiles. He reaches an arm out, his fingers impossibly long and thin. He presses his fingertips to the glass of the mirror and slides them slowly down the glass.  _ Help me.  _ He smiles wider, waiting. He has so many teeth. How do they all fit in that smile? I step closer, so calm. So peaceful. I want to help him. I want to do anything for him. Anything he needs. 

I reach a hand out and he nods.  _ Yes. _

He thinks I’m good. He doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with me at all. I smile, reaching out and pressing my fingertips to the glass. His eyes widen and he steps closer. My fingertips glow gently where they touch the surface of the mirror. It doesn’t feel hard anymore. It gives gently under my touch, membranous. He steps closer to the glass now, so closely his face is pressing against the surface of the mirror. 

_ Good,  _ he says to me. 

I feel better than I ever have. I’m helping. I’m good. His face presses further against the glass. The outline of his nose, his forehead is straining against the mirror. 

I feel something on my ankle that causes me to gasp in pain. I start to look down but I can’t. I can’t look. I’m frozen. The feeling of peace stutters in my chest.  _ More _ , he smiles. But his smile isn’t so friendly now. It’s brittle, stretched so wide it looks painful. Something falls from his thin, red lips. A leg. An insect leg. It twitches, dangling, and then retracts into his mouth. I step back, the calm surface of my mind shattering like glass as horror floods my body. 

I try to pull my hand away but I can’t. It’s stuck to the mirror like glue. I struggle, thrashing, as I watch his face contort into something so inhuman I open my mouth to scream and no sound comes out. His wide mouth is twisted into a snarl, his long fingers finally breaking through the mirror enough to wrap around my throat. I grasp at his wrist, digging my blunt fingernails into the freezing flesh, but he doesn’t let go. 

Panic is rocketing through my limbs as I struggle to breathe. I kick my legs against the mirror, trying to smash it with my boots, but they bounce against it uselessly. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Where is Regina?! The thought of her bursts into my mind, the memory of that dull thud making fear twist in my belly. The Lich’s eyes drill into mine with so much cruel, glittering hate. His fingers squeeze tighter, and I see he's holding a scroll of tightly wrapped parchment in his hand. I feel something shifting in my chest. I feel him taking something from me. 

“NO,” I grit out. Thrashing, I feel something heavy bounce against my hip. I reach into my pocket, my fingers wrapping around the heavy shears from Snow and raise them in my fist, bringing them down hard to connect with the mirror in an explosion of shattering glass. The Lich’s hand disappears from my throat, its echoing screams cutting through the room as I collapse, gasping for breath. I turn immediately, searching for Regina and see her on the floor next to me, her arms and ankles bound with something. 

I scramble over to her, still gasping, and see that it’s thread. Red, shining thread wound so tightly around her limbs, wrapped around her mouth as a gag. “Hang on,” I say hoarsely, “It’s okay just hang on.” She’s breathing heavily, and I can see she worked one arm free of the bindings to dig her fingernails into my ankle. I use the shears to slice through the thick layers of thread around her mouth first. 

“Emma,” she gasps. 

“I’m sorry,” I say in a rush, reaching down to cut the ties at her feet. “I’m so, so sorry are you okay?” I help her sit up, shaking off the last of the thread as it gathers around us in a pool of crimson. 

She’s breathing heavily as she looks up at me, exasperated, her hands clutching my arms. “Am  _ I  _ okay?” she laughs in that way that people do when they’re processing something insane. She places a hand on the side of my neck. “Emma that thing had you by the throat,” she says. 

“I know, it was like it had me hypnotized,” I shiver. I’m feeling a little hypnotized again at her fingers brushing gently across my neck. “But I’m alright, just bruised. Are you hurt?”

“No,” she shakes her head. “ _ This  _ came out of nowhere and had me in a wrestling match but I’m okay,” she says with irritation, indicating the piles of red thread.

“You saved us,” I tell her, my hand resting on her hip. “If you hadn’t grabbed my leg I don’t --” my voice cracks and I shake my head, overwhelmed. 

“You fought back against it Emma, that’s more than even Gold managed to do.”

The sun starts to shine through the windows, whatever darkness the Lich brought receding now that it’s gone. “Do you think it’s dead?” I ask hopefully, my eyes moving to the brightening sky.

“No, Emma,” Regina answers, moving to stand. I get to my feet and pull her up. She looks at the shards of glass and red thread around the room. “It isn’t dead, but I think you wounded it. It will need a few days to recover from that. And that will give us time to prepare for what comes next.”

“What comes next?” I ask, pulling a strand of red thread from her hair. 

She steps closer to me, the glass from the mirror crunching under her feet. “With any luck,” she says fiercely, her eyes flaming. “The end.”


	3. Chapter 3

So it turns out that having some undead sorcerer-freak try to hypnotize you and then attempt to kill you through a mirror kind of puts a damper on getting a good night’s sleep. Every time I close my eyes I see that wide, red smile; feel those ice-cold fingers around my neck. I sit up in frustration for the hundredth time, scrubbing my face with exhaustion. “Come on, Swan, get your shit together.”

Hauling myself out of bed, I walk to the window of Regina’ guest room. After the assassination attempt, she was pretty clear that me staying in my own house was not an option. Several threats were made. Eventually I threw some clothes in a duffel bag and let her drag me back to her place, but I still don’t feel great about being here. Not when it could put Henry and Regina in danger. The enormous amount of protection spells she threw over the house at least helped to put my mind at ease about that a little. 

Looking out the window, there’s a stiff wind ripping through the streets. The neighbors across the road have jack-o-lanterns on their porch and I can see the candles guttering in the wind, tornadoes of fallen leaves sweeping across the lawn. My focus shifts towards the forest at the edge of town in the distance, the dense tree line lining the highway. 

_ Please be dead,  _ I think to myself, eyes raking worriedly across the heavy branches shifting in the wind. I cross my arms over my waist, holding myself as I shiver involuntarily.  _ Please, just let Regina be wrong this once.  _

A chill runs up my spine as I get the strongest feeling that something is looking back at me from that forest, hidden just out of sight in the darkness between the thick tree trunks. 

Waiting.

A soft thud from Regina’s room next door pulls my attention away from the window. Frowning, I throw a flannel shirt on over my tank top and shorts and make my way to her door, soft light spilling into the hall from under the threshold. Raising my hand, I tap gently on her door with the tips of my fingers and hear a muffled  _ come in _ in response. As I open the door I’m met with the disgustingly heart-warming sight of Regina in bed surrounded by a stack of books. She’s wearing reading glasses, and I’m feeling a little light headed as she looks at me over the top of them. One of her books has fallen to the floor, bent pages splayed on the carpet, and I realize what the noise was that drew me here. 

“Are you alright?” she asks, eyebrows raising.

“Yeah,” I answer a little breathlessly, leaning against the doorframe. “I heard a noise and wanted to make sure you were okay. Doing a little light reading I see?” I ask her, smirking at the stacks of books.

“Well,” she replies, shutting the one on her lap. “I figured now that we know what we’re after I can do some proper research.”

“And?” I ask hopefully.

She tosses the book heavily on her nightstand. “And there is so far very little information on these creatures.” Disappointment sweeps through my gut, the weight on my shoulders increasing just a little. I feel such a pull to crawl into bed next to her and curl up at her side while she reads. Something about the idea of that, of dozing next to her while the sound of pages turning lulls me to sleep, makes me feel such an ache that I have to look at my own feet for a second to gather myself. 

“Well,” I say softly, stepping forward to pick up the book and place it on her dresser. “You should try to sleep.” 

She watches me, her dark eyes soft in the light from her bedside table. “I could say the same for you,” she replies. “Nightmares?” I shrug, my hand going to my throat and the growing bruise there. It’s tender to touch, and I shiver again at the awful memory. Regina reaches a hand out towards me, fingers stretched in my direction. “Come here,” she says softly, looking at me over the top of her glasses. I freeze in confusion, convinced I’m hallucinating, but when she raises her eyebrows at me impatiently I don’t hesitate to move. Turning first to shut the door behind me, I take a breath to gather some strength before turning back and getting onto the bed next to her. She moves the stack of books surrounding her, stacking them in a neat pile as I sit stiffly, not sure what’s happening. Her mattress is so soft, the comforter engulfing me as she pulls a pillow into her lap and pats it. “Lie down.”

I gape at her, eyes wide. This can’t be real. “Why?” I ask, unable to articulate the riot of emotions in my chest.

She huffs. “Must you be so suspicious?”

“I’m not suspicious,” I answer stubbornly, lowering my head into her lap. At this point all I can do is pray this isn’t a dream. 

“Whatever you say, dear,” she responds. I’m about to try to explain when I feel her fingertips rake across my scalp and have to bite my lip to stop from making an extremely inappropriate sound. My eyes fall shut of their own accord as she continues, and I can’t help but make a soft noise of relief as she runs her fingers to the space behind my ear, relieving the tension there. The pressure of her nails sliding through my hair, working the tension from the base of my skull up toward my hairline is absolute fucking bliss. It feels like warm water being poured down my spine. It feels like comfort and safety. It feels so good tears are springing to my eyes and I’m really glad they’re already shut so she doesn’t see. “I do this for Henry when he can’t sleep. It always helps,” she explains.

“I can see why,” I answer sleepily, my mouth clumsy with relaxation. I have to actively try not to drool as my body sinks further into the mattress. I try to remember the last time anyone did something like this for me and the fact that I can’t makes the moment feel like so much  _ more. _ Her fingers continue to slide through my hair, down my neck, and I want to tell her everything. I want to sit up and confess all my stupid feelings and I want to kiss her until she’s gasping for breath. Instead, because I’m a coward, I sigh a hoarse, “Thank you, Regina.”

I’m fighting to stay awake now, and her response reaches my ears the moment before I slip into unconsciousness. 

“Always.”

* * *

“Yeah. Uh huh. Sure, I’ll do my best.”

I meet eyes with David from across my desk as I struggle to end the call with my very enthusiastic-sounding mother. She’d called in the middle of my deep-dive internet search for any information about a Lich - which for the record mostly resulted in Dungeons and Dragons lore. “Well, we’re both really busy right now. Yes, I know family is important too.” David grins in a knowing way and I flip him off. “Okay, gotta go. I have to go. Hanging up now. Hanging up. Talk to you later. Okay - bye.”

“Only took you ten tries to end the call, that has to be a record,” he smiles warmly.

“She’s pretty determined to have dinner tonight,” I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose.

David leans back in his chair, watching me closely. From this angle I can see how we’re related - how I’m his daughter. In the angle of his jaw, the shape of his chin. It’s such a weird feeling, to be his kid but not. Usually it doesn’t bother me. Usually I just don’t think about it at all. But sometimes in these moments it’s hard to ignore. I shift in my seat and look away as he replies softly, “Why do you say that like it’s a bad thing? Don’t you want to spend time with us?”

I feel my jaw clenching, though I don’t know exactly why. “Of course I do. It’s just - I’ve got this case. I can’t just drop everything to go have dinner.”

“Emma,” David says softly, leaning forward. His eyes meet mine, and they’re the same color as my own. I swallow heavily and look away again. “You’re working this investigation from every angle possible. It’s not going to take away from it if you take a break to eat for a couple of hours.” I nod, picking at the flaking leather on my seat. “Besides, it might be good for us to spend some more time with Regina,” he adds.

My eyes snap back to him. “What? What are you talking about?”

“Well, she’s the mother of our grandson. We’ve mended fences, so to speak. And it seems as though the two of you are...close.” He looks at me with raised eyebrows and I don’t know how to respond. My thoughts briefly flicker back to this morning, to waking up wrapped around Regina with my face buried in her neck, my arm cinched tightly around her waist, how right it felt. 

“We’re friends,” I answer defensively. I feel like I have to deny what he’s saying, because if I don’t then I might actually have to deal with my shit. But maybe this is the kind of thing fathers and daughters are supposed to talk about. Maybe this is how it starts. I open my mouth and shut it, struggling to find the words for all of it. “Me and Regina, we’re--” My desk phone rings and I sigh, annoyed and relieved at the same time. I lift the phone from its cradle; an old rotary, solid and heavy, its weight reassuring. “Sheriff’s office.”

“ _ Emma,” _ Regina’s voice crackles over the line. “Get over here  _ now. _ ”

“I’m on my way.” 

I slam it down and David nods at me once before I disappear in a haze of white light. 

* * *

“How in the hell did you do that?” 

Regina is staring at me from where I appeared in her office, hands on her hips. I’ve never  _ poofed  _ on my own before and clearly she’s as stunned as I am. “I have no idea,” I answer honestly, stepping toward her. “Now what’s the matter? You sounded terrified.”

Her nostrils flare and my knees get a little weak. “I am  _ not  _ terrified, Emma Swan.” She crosses her arms. “I’m concerned.” 

“Alright,” I answer, rubbing my forehead. This day is just gearing up to give me a migraine. “What are you concerned about, Regina.”

Her face loses its haughty quality as she glances over my shoulder. “That,” she says softly. I look past her and see there’s something on the desk. My palms start to sweat as I walk toward it, a sense of dread prickling at my hairline. A shaft of autumn sunlight is streaming through the high window, landing perfectly on the small body of a crow that’s been carefully placed in the center of Regina’s desk. Its wings are spread open as if in flight, black feathers glistening in the sun as it rests almost peacefully on its back.

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter softly. I can see as I approach that its body is split down the middle, the white bone of its ribcage cracked open neatly in two. “Where are its…?”

“I don’t know,” Regina adds. The organs are missing, the crow’s body an empty cavity. I look at her and her eyebrows are drawn together with concern, her beautiful lips pulled into a deep frown. “Its eyes are missing too.”

I glance back to the desk, skin crawling with disgust, and confirm that she’s right. Its empty eye sockets stare back at me as my mind tries to process what I’m seeing. I can hear children playing outside, their high-pitched shrieks of laughter so strange to my ears with the disturbing shit I’m looking at right now. “What do you think this means?” I ask, turning back to Regina. “Are you marked now, too? I thought you said it would take time to recover.”

She shakes her head, eyes still locked on the dead animal on her desk. “I don’t think the Lich did this. It doesn’t have the feeling of dark magic in it. I think perhaps someone in town is working for it. And I think it’s a warning to me.” 

I drag my palms down my face, sighing heavily. “Who could have gotten in here without arousing suspicion?” I ask, dropping my hands to look at her. 

“My secretary,” Regina lists on her fingers, blood-red nails glistening. “You. That’s it, really.”

I push aside the implications of that and pace the room, avoiding looking in the direction of her desk. “How long were you gone?”

She thinks for a moment. “Seconds. Thirty at most. I just went to get something from the photocopier and when I came back...” she waves a hand in the direction of the dead bird. She doesn’t look afraid, necessarily. But I can see tension around her eyes, in the line of her shoulders. She lets her head fall back, eyes closing as she tries to take calming breaths. Her hair is lit up in the sun, the long line of her throat so readily available for kissing that I have to look away and steady myself for an entirely different reason. 

I step forward slowly, my fingers trailing her arm before wrapping gently around her wrist. Her eyes slide open slowly, watching me. I haven’t forgotten that she almost kissed me yesterday, not even being strangled by some monster could erase that from my mind. I know this isn’t the time to bring it up, but I really want it to be. 

“You okay?” I ask her softly.

She smiles gently, and I feel it like sunshine in my chest. “I am.”

I nod, flustered. “Okay, I’ll check the security cameras and then we can --”

“ _ There she is. _ ” A harsh voice cuts through the room and we both turn to see Leroy at the doorway, his eyes glassy with alcohol though it’s barely four o’clock. Regina swiftly magicks the crow off her desk, and I can see why. There are a handful of townspeople behind him, muttering amongst themselves, and a ritually-murdered crow is probably not going to help with whatever is happening here. I get a sick feeling in my stomach as I watch them filter in.

“Can I help you?” Regina asks, her voice cool and regal.

“Yeah,” Leroy answers, his gait unbalanced as he pushes his way into the room. “You can confess.”

Regina’s lips tighten into a thin line, her hands balled into fists. “What the hell are you talking about?” I ask, stepping into the space between them.

“We know it’s her that’s been petrifying people!” Leroy accuses, jabbing a finger in her direction. Regina’s nostrils flare, but she looks more resigned than anything. Like she’d been expecting this.

“What proof do you have of that?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest.

“She’s the Evil Queen,” Leroy spits out. “What more evidence do you need?

“A lot, actually,” I answer, trying to keep my voice calm in spite of the rage churning in my gut. “So can you stop wasting our time please?”

“We know she defaced the town hall too,” he adds, pointing to the window. “I  _ saw  _ her outside just now,” he adds. 

“You saw no such thing,” Regina replies icily. My eyes follow the line of Leroy’s finger out the window, and I step closer to get a look. I can see the town square through the window and my mouth drops open as I look outside. 

“Regina,” I say, my voice hushed. “Look.”

She comes to stand next to me and I hear a soft intake of breath as her eyes land on the square. Someone has taken what I am praying is red paint and splashed it across the square. It looks like the scene of some horrible slaughter. “What do you mean when you say that you saw Regina?” I ask Leroy, turning to him. The other townsfolk behind him are watching closely, their eyes on the Mayor, and it makes my stomach twist. 

“Well,” he huffs. “I didn’t see her exactly, but I saw someone.” Regina snorts and I shoot her a glare. She glares back fiercely enough that I am briefly concerned for my personal safety, but she mercifully shuts up. 

“Someone,” I echo, raising my eyebrows.

“Yeah,” Leroy says pointing at Regina. “Someone. Running from the square, with dark hair like hers. Probably conjuring up some more dark magic to take out the rest of us. Haven’t you done  _ enough? _ ” he asks, his eyes full of rage. “Haven’t you hurt us enough?” he asks again, stepping towards Regina. I reach a hand out to his chest and stop him in his tracks as she takes a few steps backwards, bristling.

“Hey, hold it right there,” I growl. I cast a glance over at Regina and her eyes are bright with emotion, jaw tense as she watches me. “Listen, we can figure this out, but jumping to conclusions isn’t going to help anyone.”

“It will sure as hell help all the people she has lined up to petrify next!” Leroy shouts. There’s a soft murmur of assent behind him. 

“Listen, I will look into it okay? But I can tell you right now that Regina didn’t hurt anybody. And since you have no actual proof of anything, we’re going to wait for some evidence before we go throwing people in lockup.”

“You’re not going to do anything?” Leroy scoffs, his breath reeks of stale beer. “Figures.”

“And just what the hell is that supposed to mean?” I ask, crossing my arms. 

“It means that just because you’re screwing the Mayor doesn’t excuse the fact that --”

Leroy’s sentence gets cut off as I grab him by the front of the shirt and lift him off his feet, pinning him to the wall behind him. He grunts in surprise as I put my face in his, nose to nose. My heart is racing with fury as I snarl, “Don’t you ever talk about her like that again.  _ Ever _ . Do you hear me?”

He nods silently and I lower him to his feet, gaping at me as I step back to address the crowd. “I want all of you to listen to me very closely. If any of you had any idea how much time and effort the Mayor has put into trying to find the person who’s responsible for petrifying people - if any of you had any idea how many times she’s risked her life to save all of your asses - you would probably think pretty differently of her these days.” I pause and stare each of them down before I continue, fury boiling under my skin. “I know that the Mayor is probably not your favorite person. I know that she’s probably hurt you. I’m not asking you to forgive her. But I am asking you to accept that she’s a part of this town.”

Leroy grumbles, shifting on his heels as the rest of the townspeople look reasonably cowed. Idiots. “I will look into this - all of this - and in the meantime the next time you want to go old-school Enchanted Forest and show up with pitchforks to exact vigilante justice? Don’t.” The somewhat humbled group shuffles out of Regina’s office and I shut the door behind them, pausing with my palm resting on the doorframe for a moment before I turn to face her. She’s staring at me, pale and tense, breathing quickly with her hands still clenched into tight fists. I can’t tell what she’s feeling; anger or hurt, or maybe she’s just really worried I believe those idiots and think she’s guilty.

“Listen,” I breathe out, running my hands through my hair. “You know that I know you didn’t do this, right?” I drop my hands heavily to my sides. “And I’m sorry about Leroy, he’s a fucking idiot okay? And as for the rest of them --” Regina’s mouth on mine cuts me off mid-sentence, my head bumping firmly into the wooden door as she swiftly pins me to it. My brain stutters to a halt at the feeling of her lips, hands automatically coming to wrap around her and pull her close. 

My heart is slamming in my chest as my mind catches up to the moment, and I can’t help the soft sound that escapes my throat as Regina Mills, Mayor, mother of our son, slides her tongue into my mouth and kisses me roughly in a way I have only ever imagined when alone at night. Her nails are digging into my scalp as her lips slide over mine, her other hand clutching my leather jacket to pull me closer. My hands are fast, desperate, skimming over her back and under her perfectly-pressed blazer, fingers clutching her hips. I feel like I’m drinking her in, frantically taking in her smell and her taste and the feeling of her mouth on mine as she kisses me so desperately it’s sucking the breath from my lungs. 

I grab her shirt and yank it up, untucking it from her pants and dipping my hand under its hem, running my nails along the soft skin of her lower back. She makes a sound in the back of her throat that makes me think she really, really liked that, so I do it again, harder. She gasps into my mouth, one hand still holding my face as she drops the other to my belt buckle, yanking it open. I’m fairly certain I briefly black out for a moment at the realization that this is happening, the heavy weight of my arousal pulsing between my legs. I want to pick her up and toss her on her desk, playing out a fantasy I may or may not have had about a hundred times, and I’m about to do just that when my phone rings, the blaring sound of Disney’s Snow White’s “With a Smile and a Song” jarring us out of the moment. Regina jumps back like she’s just been scalded, her hands up in the air as though she’s facing a firing squad. I blink at her in confusion as she slowly lowers her arms, cheeks flushed, and answer my phone quickly. 

“Hey Snow.” My voice is husky, and I’m trying to slow my breathing, but my heart is still slamming in my chest, and I can still taste Regina’s lipstick on my mouth. I can hear her asking me again if we’ll come to dinner and as I watch Regina walk to her desk and pull out a mirror, quickly fixing her smeared lipstick and re-tucking her shirt where my desperate hands had pulled it loose, I find myself saying, “Yeah, sure. We’ll be there.” My mother sounds ecstatic and I manage to hang up quickly, but the silence that engulfs the room when I do makes me wish I still had Snow’s sweet voice in my ear. 

Regina finally turns to look at me, and her face is carefully schooled into its usual regal demeanor. Which might be working on me if it weren’t for the fact that her hair is still mussed on one side from my roving fingers. “Well - I should go take a look at that vandalism in the town square,” she says firmly, clasping her arms in front of her. “It was likely just a distraction to point suspicion away from the true culprit, however it doesn’t hurt to look it over.”

“Uh - yeah, okay.” I answer uncertainly. I don’t want her to go, I want to talk about this. I want to hear her say that she kissed me because she meant it. I want to pull her against me again, feel her body on mine, feel those impossibly soft lips. But I can see she’s maxed out, and it’s taking everything I have to not make this about me - because I kind of don’t think it is. 

Or at least, I really, really hope it isn’t. 

“Right. Good. Well I’ll see you later then,” she says formally, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“Sure,” I answer softly, gut twisting. “I kind of told Snow we’d go for dinner at her place tonight though,” I add.

“Yes, very well,” she answers, throwing her purse over her shoulder. “I’ll see you tonight then, Emma - Sheriff,” she adds, nodding as she sweeps past me and yanks open the door. I swear she was one step short of actually running out of the room. The heavy oak door slams shut behind her and I let my head fall heavily into my hands.

Definitely a migraine day.

* * *

Going to my parents should be a good thing.

It should, I know that, and it  _ is -  _ kind of. It’s just all so...weird. I mean, no one could ever claim that we’re the typical American family. Aside from the fact that my parents are the same age as me, and ignoring the fact that Regina is something like my step-grandmother, and putting aside all the various attempts to kill each other, and  _ especially  _ putting aside the fact that Regina and I desperately made out against her office door mere hours ago and have yet to acknowledge it - my parents have a baby now. It’s pathetic that of everything, that is what makes me the most uncomfortable. I need to grow up and stop being weirdly uneasy about the presence of some toothless little blob, but so far I haven’t done so great a job of that. I also haven’t done a great job of letting myself think about  _ why _ exactly an infant makes me so edgy in the first place. Actually, I’ve kind of been pulling a classic Swan and avoiding the subject - and the baby in question - as much as I can, which in a small town is not so easy.

I head down the sidewalk in the direction of the Charmings, and I can already feel a weight in my stomach. As if I don’t have enough other shit to stress me out - how I don’t have an ulcer right now is beyond me. Regina and Henry meet me at the corner, and the look Regina gives me as she steps out of the car - looking absolutely gorgeous in a thick knit sweater and deep red lipstick - is actually a little on the warm side. It’s enough for a pathetic, lovesick idiot such as myself to feel some desperate glimmer of hope, at least. She sighs heavily as we round the corner and head up the path to the house. “Take it easy, would you? It’s just dinner.” 

“I’d rather face the Lich again,” she grumbles.

“Again?” Henry asks, looking up at us. We’d sort of opted not to fill him in on our last encounter. If only because it was so nightmare-inducing.

“She’s just being dramatic, as usual,” I reply with a smirk, raising a gloved fist to knock on the door. 

“I am most certainly  _ not - _ ”

“Welcome!” Snow’s beaming face greets us as she pulls open the door, Neal on her hip. 

I step inside and let her squeeze me with her one available arm before she moves on to Henry. Regina deftly avoids a hug by sweeping smoothly into the room while Snow is still busy squeezing the breath out of our kid, shooting me a conspiratorial smirk that has my stomach in knots. Taking off my coat and hanging it up, I glance over and see Snow resting her head gently on the top of Neal’s as she rocks side to side with him, listening intently to Henry tell her about school. The sight of it makes my bones ache, and I don’t know what any of it means. I’m feeling so turned inside-out tonight that I’m starting to seriously regret coming. It’s almost like having two of the three biggest stressors in my life in one place was a bad idea. I might as well have invited the Lich to really round out the evening. 

“Would you get out of your head Swan, I need you present and accounted for if I’m to survive the evening.” Regina’s voice pulls me from my spiral and I see she’s standing next to me with a generously-filled glass of wine. 

I could respond with something biting - considering she’s one of the main reasons I’m in my head at all tonight. But the sight of her offering me wine with a warm look in her eyes is enough to make the retort die on my tongue. “Bless you,” I sigh, taking the glass and downing a fifth of it.

“Easy dear, I don’t want to have to carry you home,” she says softly. 

My eyes cut to her over the top of my wine glass and I can see she’s watching me closely, her eyes moving down to my lips before skimming lightly over my body, and then back up to my eyes. It’s like she’s actively trying to kill me. My breath stutters in my chest at the look she’s giving me, and then I feel a flash of irritation at her goddamned mixed signals. “What the hell are you  _ doing _ ?” I ask under my breath.

Her eyes cut to Snow and Henry, settling in on the couch, before returning to me. “I beg your pardon?”

I step closer to her and her nostrils flare, eyes darkening. She’s holding her wine glass up to her chest like a shield between us as I close in on her. “As if you don’t know,” I say softly. She swallows heavily, her eyes darkening. 

“What are you two chatting about so seriously over there?” David asks, coming out of the kitchen with a plate of appetizers.

“Nothing,” we both reply at once. 

Snow looks at us curiously as I come to sit as far as humanly possible from Regina and take another deep sip from my wine glass. Regina watches me with intense eyes for a few moments but I pointedly ignore her long enough that she eventually starts to engage in the conversation. It feels fine for a while, talking with Henry and hearing about what Snow is working on at school. There’s a warm fire crackling in the fireplace and it smells like about five different delicious things are cooking in the kitchen, and I try to let myself be present. I try to enjoy it because - isn’t this what I always wanted? A family? A home? So why doesn’t any of it feel like it’s mine _? _

“Emma, will you hold your brother while your father and I go to check on dinner?” Snow asks, pushing my baby brother into my arms. 

“Oh, uh, yeah - sure,” I answer, awkwardly holding the infant as she gets to her feet. Regina takes the opportunity to come sit next to me, sipping her wine as she chuckles to herself at my discomfort. I adjust the baby so he’s sitting on my knee and he babbles at me, reaching up to grasp my hair. I look uncomfortably at Henry. “Hey kid, you want to hold your uncle?”

“Nice try, mom,” Henry smirks. 

“Honestly, Emma, he’s an infant, not a bomb,” Regina rolls her eyes. 

“I  _ know that _ ,” I hiss. Neal starts to fuss and I do my best to soothe him, meaning I pat his little back awkwardly and he wails louder. Regina clicks her tongue and holds out her arms. 

“Would you just give him to me before you sprain something?” I push the kid gratefully towards her and she scoops him up smoothly cradling him to her chest. She rocks him gently as she pats his back and he immediately calms down, his cries subsiding. Watching her hold this baby so tenderly is doing about 43 different things to my body, none of which I want my son to witness. Though, by the smug look on his face, I’m pretty sure he has some idea of what’s going on. I glare at him and look away from Regina as she continues to rock my brother.

Great.

I’m jealous of a fucking baby.

* * *

Dinner goes by relatively smoothly.

Once Snow reclaims Neal I can relax a little more. At least until Regina sits next to me at the dinner table and her overwhelming presence drives me to distraction. Our elbows keep brushing against one another, and at one point she rests her knee against mine for so long that my palms start to sweat. Definitely trying to kill me. “Snow, that was amazing. Thanks again,” I groan, holding my hands to my stomach.

She smiles. “You’re welcome, Emma. It makes me happy to know you’ve gotten at least one proper meal lately.”

“I beg your pardon, Snow, but let’s not forget that I feed this Princess of yours at least three nights a week,” Regina counters. The thing is, I don’t think Snow realized how often Regina and I hang out, especially judging by the way her eyes fly from Regina and then to me in a somewhat knowing way.

“Is that right?” David asks, a gentle smile on his face. I shoot him a pleading look and he hides his smile behind his wine glass. I so cannot be dealing with this right now. With any of this.

“Well thank you, Regina,” Snow answers warmly. “I’ve heard from Emma that your cooking is incredible.”

Regina’s cheeks are warming and I can see she’s regretting having opened her mouth. “Look, thanks for everyone’s concern but I do know how to feed myself,” I announce defensively.

“Yeah mom, but cereal doesn’t count,” Henry chimes in.

I scoff at him but don’t reply because - fair enough. Instead I stand and start clearing the plates. “Well, Regina, once Neal is old enough you’ll have to teach me how to make those amazing apple tarts of yours,” Snow says warmly.

Regina’s lips purse in a way that tells me she has no intention of teaching Snow her recipe, but she manages a smile. “Yes, perhaps.” I clear her plate and take everything into the kitchen, scraping the leftovers into the food waste bin. I can’t hear what they’re saying but I find the soft tones of conversation comforting as I stack the dishwasher and wipe down the counters. I push my way back into the dining area, toweling my hands dry as I catch the tail end of their conversation.

“It’s been so amazing having Neal around,” Snow is saying, cuddling my brother to her chest. “I feel like I’m a real mother now, you know? We’re finally getting the chance to be parents.” I stop dead in the doorway, her words landing in my chest like a physical blow.

“Snow, darling,” David says quickly, glancing at me with concern. “We were already parents.”

Her eyes widen as she brings a hand to her mouth, looking to me. “Oh, well of course, Emma. I only meant -”

“Yeah, no, I get it,” I answer. I feel a rush of sticky shame trickle down my spine at the thought that Regina and Henry are witnessing this. Regina’s twisted around to look at me and her eyes are dark and unreadable. “I’m just going to take out the garbage,” I say to no one in particular. I hear Snow calling my name but I ignore her as I push my way into the kitchen and grab the trash bag from the garbage can. 

I walk around the back of the house and slam the bag down, covering my face with my hands. Leaning heavily against the wall I take a few deep breaths, willing myself to calm down.  _ Why does it always have to end like this?  _

I don’t even hear Regina approach until her shoes are crunching next to me on the gravel path, and I feel the panic rise in my chest. I don’t want to talk to her about this, I can’t. The urge to run grips me, my old instincts taking over. I manage to push the flight response down, instead shoving my hands in my pockets and lifting my gaze up to the night sky.

Regina doesn’t say anything as she comes to stand next to me, leaning quietly against the wall. All I can hear is the occasional car driving past us on the road out front, fireworks popping off in the distance as the neighborhood kids cause havoc ramping up to Halloween. Eventually Regina starts to talk to me in the gentle voice she usually reserves for Henry, caring and soft. “Snow is a starry-eyed imbecile who I am quite certain has cotton candy for brains,” she sighs, crossing her arms. “But one thing I do know is that, tactlessness aside, she does love you very much Emma. Both of your parents do.” She glances at me, her voice serious. 

“It doesn’t matter,” I answer stubbornly, still refusing to look at her. 

“Perhaps not,” she shrugs, her breath visible in the chilly air. "Or perhaps, regardless, you can try to see your value in this world outside of the opinions of others." 

The thought settles quietly in my mind. How does someone even go about doing that? How do you separate what other people say and do to you from the way you feel about yourself? "I think that's easier said than done," I answer quietly. 

"True," she concedes. "But I believe it's the trying that matters." 

I can see the value in what she's saying, but right now I’m having a hard time putting that advice into action. “I’m so tired, Regina,” I confess, my eyes closing. I wrap my arms around myself tightly. “What is it going to take? How good do I have to be for someone to…" I cut myself off, throat too tight to finish. 

Regina turns to me now, I can feel her intense gaze on my face. "To what?" 

I shrug, shaking my head. "To want me." I know I should feel ashamed for admitting that, I actually can't believe I did. I only want her to see the strong side of me, the one that rescues her from bad things, the one that's competent and capable. Ish. Not this, not some desperate orphan. But she doesn't look disgusted or smug when she grasps my shoulders and turns me to face her. 

When my eyes finally meet hers, they're full of a certain kind of understanding. Knowing. "Emma, you sweet idiot. Do you really not know?" 

"Know what?" I ask, shaking my head with confusion. 

She looks at me for a moment, her eyes full of emotion. "How annoyingly good you already are." I blink at her, waiting. I have a feeling that wasn't what she was going to say and irritation flickers in my chest. 

"Oh yeah?" I ask tensely. "Is that why you cut and run on me today?" I raise my eyebrows in a challenge. If I can be honest, so can she. She huffs a little, her fingernails digging into my arms.

"That was not about you, Emma," she says fiercely. 

"What was it about then?" I push, one hand coming up to grasp her waist. 

She shakes her head, dark hair falling into her eyes. “I - “ A loud crash interrupts the moment and we both jump, turning towards the sound. The lid from the garbage can is spinning like a top, the can itself turned on its side with its contents sprawled across the gravel path. “Do you hear that?” I ask in a tense whisper. 

The porchlight on the side of the house is shining directly on the metal garbage can, but its illumination doesn’t reach far. Just beyond the circle of light is the sound of something eating. Wet, snapping, crunching noises that are so grotesque I feel nauseated as I take a step closer. I can feel Regina pressed against my back as I inch forward. “Maybe it’s a dog,” I offer hopefully.

“And maybe I’m your fairy godmother,” she answers sarcastically.

“Don’t even joke about that,” I warn her. That’s the last thing I need. I take a breath and reach out a hand, trying to conjure some light to see with, when Henry appears out of the shadows. Regina and I both let out sounds of surprise as our kid blinks up at us innocently. “Moms? What’s going on?”

“Henry, get over here!” Regina lunges forward and pulls him tightly against her.

“Ow, hey! What gives?”

“Where did you come from?” I ask, glancing from him to the overturned garbage. 

“What?” he asks. “Oh, I just came to check on you. You seemed really sad. That wasn’t very nice, what Grandma Snow said. But I really don’t think she meant it to be mean.”

My heart melts a little as I step forward and ruffle his hair. “Thanks kid. What were you doing in the backyard?”

“Oh,” he answers lightly, still smothered in Regina’s grasp. “I came around the other side of the house. I forgot what side they keep the garbage cans on.”

I glance back to the dark place where those awful noises were coming from. “Did you see anything?”

“What do you mean? What’s to see?” He frowns at me, then turns towards the up-ended trash. Something moves in the dark, the sound of dry leaves crunching as it shifts. 

“Regina, get Henry inside,” I tell her as calmly as possible. 

“Like hell I’m leaving you here,” she hisses. She waves a hand at our son and he disappears in a cloud of purple smoke, cut off mid-objection. Regina comes to stand slowly next to me as I keep my eyes fixed on the darkness. I can see the edge of something. Blacker than the black surrounding it. And something glowing softly. Like the faintest reflection of light bouncing off a set of wide, even teeth. My heart is in my throat as I raise my hand, trying my best to conjure up a fireball. I’ve never been great at offensive spells but I give it everything I have as I hurl the fireball at the spot in the darkness. 

All I manage to do is blow up my parent’s garbage can pretty spectacularly. As my fireball lights the night, the Lich is nowhere to be seen, and neither are any remnants of my parent’s recycling bin. The smell of burning banana peel permeates the air as bits of smoking paper float down around us, a small dent in the earth where the trash can used to be. “Well done, dear,” Regina says, impressed. “If being the Sheriff no longer suits you, it looks as though you have a great future working as a garbage incinerator.”

“You’re hilarious,” I glare at her. 

My parents and Henry come running around the side of the house, taking in the smoking pile of ash that used to be our dinner scraps. “Emma, dear, I’m so sorry I hurt your feelings,” Snow says quickly. “I don’t blame you at all for taking out some of your anger.”

I rub my temples, eyes closed in frustration. “Snow, I was not taking out my anger on anything, okay?”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Regina mutters to herself. 

“Would everyone just  _ stop _ ?” I grit out. “There was something out here, okay? I think it was the same thing that’s been terrorizing the town. And for whatever reason, it’s showed up here to...eat garbage.”

“It’s weak,” Regina replies thoughtfully. “Animal marrow would help it regain strength faster, it’s trying to regenerate. Perhaps it got at the chicken bones from this evening’s dinner.”

My parents eyes are getting wider as they glance from myself to Regina and back. I continue to rub my increasingly throbbing temples. “Wow. How disgusting.” I think of the long, lanky Lich crouched over a chicken carcass, bones crunching under those white, even teeth, and it makes me nauseated.

Regina seems to sense that I’ve hit my limit because she clears her throat and says, “Well, Snow, Charming.” Even when she’s trying to be nice, she still manages to say their names as though they’re an insult. “Thank you for a lovely evening, but perhaps we should take our leave now.”

“Of course,” David nods, resting a hand on Henry’s shoulder, my brother resting in the crook of his arm. “I’ll go get your things.”

I can tell Snow wants to talk to me with the way she’s wringing her hands, but I push past her and wait for David to bring out my coat, shrugging it on. I know I’m being childish or stubborn or whatever, I know that. But I just can’t bring myself to care. I wait for everyone to say their goodbyes, waving at my parents and mumbling thanks before flinging myself heavily into the passenger seat of Regina’s car. I half-expect her to make some comment about me acting like a dramatic teenager, but she uncharacteristically doesn’t take the bait, instead driving us home in relative silence. 

The turmoil of emotions in my body are overwhelming, and all I want to do is have a stiff drink and watch trashy reality shows in my underwear to forget about my life right now. Of course, that kind of stuff is frowned upon at the Mills house, so instead I say goodnight to Henry and Regina though it’s barely nine o’clock and trudge upstairs to the guest room. I’m just about to get into bed when there’s a knock at my door. I don’t know if I have the capacity to talk to Regina,  _ really _ talk to her like I should, so I’m a little relieved when I open the door and it’s Henry.

“Hey,” I say softly, cupping his chin. He still looks pale, and we seem to have a competition going for who has darker circles under our eyes. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” he says with a yawn. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

This kid. He’s so sweet sometimes it makes me wonder if he really came from me at all. “I’m okay, Henry. But I really appreciate you checking on me.” I pull him against me and he hugs me so tightly I start to get worried. “Hey,” I say again, pulling back. “Are  _ you  _ okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, his voice muffled as he talks into my abdomen. “Can I sleep with you tonight? I’ve been having bad dreams.” I raise my eyebrows in surprise, though luckily he doesn’t see it. He’s never asked me for anything like this before, he was a little old for co-sleeping when he came back into my life. It makes me even more concerned for him. 

“Of course you can,” I answer, gesturing him into my room. I leave the door cracked in case Regina goes to check on him and gets worried. He crawls heavily into the bed and I climb in behind him, pulling him against me, wrapping up his long, skinny limbs in mine.

He settles in immediately, making a soft sound of contentment, and I remember what Regina told me the other night about how she helps him fall asleep. I reach out and start to rake his head with my nails, my mind churning over the day's events as I feel him relax against me. “Hey Henry?” I say softly, not sure if he’s still awake. 

“Mm?” he asks, eyes closed. 

“You know I love you, right?” I say tightly, my chest constricted. I realize how bad I am at saying it to him, how infrequently I tell him how much he means to me. I’m not in the habit of doing things like that, I guess I’m just not used to it. But I don’t want him to ever, ever doubt how deeply I care about him. I don’t ever want him to wonder about that. He smiles, nodding into the pillow.

“Course I know,” he says sleepily. I relax a little, relieved. Makes sense that a kid raised with as much love as Regina gave him would never doubt anything like that.

“Good,” I whisper, settling in against him. 

I think he’s asleep, his breath deep and slow, when he sleepily mumbles, “We love you too, Ma.”

* * *

Because I’m a big, childish baby, I avoid the station and David the next day.

I may not be great at much, but I have always excelled at not dealing with shit, and today I’m really giving it my all. I wake up earlier than Regina - a first - and maneuver myself out of bed, leaving Henry snoring softly in the pile of blankets. Giving him a gentle kiss on the forehead, I quickly get ready in the bathroom, bundling up against the cold and snagging one of Regina’s travel mugs to steal some coffee before I head out.

The freezing morning air bites at my cheeks as I jog to my cruiser, the leather seats so cold I suck in a breath as I start the engine and wait for the car, and my body, to defrost a little. Teeth chattering, I radio the station to let them know I’ll be out patrolling today and they radio back with confirmation. There. The perfect avoidance plan. No parents to make me feel things, no Regina to confuse me, just me. And with any luck, some progress. 

I spend the cold, sunny day going over Gold’s shop with a fine-toothed comb again. Regina had told me that a Lich needs a phylactery, a home of sorts, to go back to and regenerate. It could be anything, but as Gold sort of specializes in cursed objects and creepy shit, I have to wonder if maybe he’s the one that brought this mess on our heads, intentionally or not. And if he is, there’s a good chance it’s in his shop and I just missed it the first time. Nearly half of the things in his dusty shop give me the creeps, and at one point I find an old medical bag that has such gross energy I am convinced that the Lich in question is going to unfold itself from the worn leather right before my eyes. As it turns out, as I ever so carefully inspect it, it’s full of dolls. Wide-eyed, curly haired porcelain dolls. I jump back, shuddering and cursing Gold’s name for owning so much nightmare fuel. If the guy is ever unpetrified, he and I need to have a real good chat about some of this stuff of his.

Refusing to let myself be frustrated, or to give in to the seriously mounting weight on my shoulders, I leave Gold’s shop with even more resolve to make progress. I’m surprised to see most of the day has already passed as I painstakingly inspected the place. The sun is starting to set on the horizon, even more chill in the air now. I sink into my cruiser and pull out, ignoring the messages I can see lighting up on my phone’s home screen from where it sits in the passenger seat. I’m still playing the avoid-everything game, and I play to win. 

I pull up at a stop sign as a group of kids in Halloween costumes playfully run across the crosswalk, fairies and pirates and witches giggling and pushing each other on their way to a party, followed by a beleaguered-looking dad dressed as a mummy. I smile to myself as I hit the gas and crank the music on the radio, letting my mind wander. If it were me, if I were a gross, creepy, undead wizard that needed an object to keep me alive, I’d want to keep it close. I’d want to keep it as safe as possible. What’s the safest place in town? My head falls heavily against the seat rest as I sigh. The answer to that is easy for me. But it’s also attached to the Bad Feelings that I’m currently avoiding, and besides, I doubt the Lich has the same mushy, homey vibes about the Mills home as I do. 

I round the corner, headlights sweeping across the road and slam on the breaks as Tom Clark comes flying into the street, waving his arms. “Jesus!” The car skids to a halt with just inches left between my bumper and Tom’s knees. I leave the engine running as I leap out of the car, “Tom, what the hell?! I could have killed you!”

“Sheriff, please, you’ve got to come with me,” Tom pants.

“What’s going on?” I ask, frowning as I flick open the button on my gun holster with my thumb.

“Over here,” he points to the parking lot behind the Tavern. I follow him quickly to find the Lich’s third victim standing frozen, mid-cigarette and with a scowl on his face, next to the back exit of the bar. 

“Oh shit,” I mutter under my breath.  _ Why did it have to be him? _

“He just went outside for a smoke,” Tom explains, running his fingers through his short hair. “I came to check on him when he didn’t come back.”

“It’s okay Tom,” I nod, pulling out my phone. I call David at the station and he picks up on the first ring. “It’s me,” I say by way of explanation. “We’re gonna need everyone we have at the Tavern.”

“We’re on our way,” David answers firmly. “Who is it?”

I sigh heavily, dread filling my stomach. 

“It’s Leroy.”

* * *

I don’t call Regina for this one. The farther away she stays from this, the better. Considering Leroy’s feelings about her, and the way he marched into her office yesterday - god, was that only yesterday? - this isn’t going to look great for her. We do the usual, sweep the area, question all the patrons. And for the third time we have nothing. The night is so cold my ears are burning, my breath pluming out in front of me as I sweep the treeline at the edge of the parking lot again. My flashlight illuminates old cigarette butts, bottle caps, a nickle, and some gum. Nothing.

David comes walking over to me, his hands tucked into his coat against the cold. “I think we’ve found everything there is to find here, Emma.” 

I look up at him stubbornly, shoulders hunched. “I don’t think I can leave a third scene without anything to show for it,” I say honestly. “I need something.  _ Anything. _ ” 

“I understand that,” he nods. “But, I think it might be a good idea…” he glances over his shoulder at the last few patrons being interviewed. “It might be better for you to be with Regina right now. Just in case.”

My spine goes rigid. “Did one of them threaten her?”

“No,” David shakes his head quickly. “Not at all. In fact, the one person that might have caused her trouble tonight is taken care of, in a manner of speaking,” he says softly, indicating Leroy, who is currently being loaded into a truck to go back to the station. “Still. People knew how he felt about her. It doesn’t look good.”

“But you know she didn’t do it, right?” I ask, my heart in my throat. For some reason, I need him to believe in her like I do. I watch him carefully, my arms crossed.

David looks at me for a few seconds, his eyes searching my face. “I do, Emma. Whoever she was to me before you knew her...it’s not who she is now.”

I feel a rush of gratitude towards him, the urge to hug him almost overwhelming. But it’s me, so I don’t. “Thanks,” I tell him, smiling softly.

He reaches out and tucks my hair behind my ear. “Of course, kiddo.”

The sweet moment is interrupted by the sound of something sliding through the trees near us, combined with the overwhelming feeling of being watched. “Did you hear that?” I ask, fingertips already glowing with magic.

“Why yes I did,” David answers, eyes sweeping the fairly thin group of trees backing the parking lot. My heart is thumping as I keep expecting the tall, thin figure to glide out from the dark, and I’m really, really glad my dad is here right now. Our flashlights are crisscrossing through the sparse undergrowth, but after a minute, nothing. “Wait, Emma, do you see that?” David’s gaze is focused on something on the ground a few feet away amongst the trees. “Is that a  _ rose _ ?”

I follow his sightline and my flashlight lands on a single, red rose growing in the scrubby treed area. “Wow, that’s not suspicious at all,” I say sarcastically, walking towards it.

“Wait, is that a good idea?” David asks, holding out an arm to me. 

“I’m not going to touch anything, I just want a better look,” I assure him, stepping into the wooded area. “Watch my back,” I add, swallowing heavily. The dry pine needles crunch under my feet as I step a little closer. I stop when I’m within a few feet of it, my icy breath coming faster as it looks up at me innocently. I stare at it for a moment and see the petals start to wither, curling at the edges and turning black before dropping one by one. My hands are starting to tremble a little, the flashlight bouncing gently as I cautiously step forward to get a closer look. As I do, I can see the petals weren’t growing on a stem at all. They were growing on a bone. “Chicken bones,” I mutter to myself in confusion. There’s a small pile of them glistening on the forest floor. 

“Did you say chicken bones?” David echoes behind me.

“Yes, I have no idea what --” my words get cut off as I find myself suddenly flat on my back, the wind knocked from my lungs. There’s something strong wrapped around my ankles that pulled me down, and it starts dragging me across the ground. Fast. 

“ _ Emma!”  _ David calls for help over his shoulder as I thrash against the vines that are wrapped around me, sharp thorns digging into my ankles, my calves, my thighs. The vines are engulfing me now, dragging me faster into the dark, and I’m grasping at the thin branches and plants I can reach but none of them are strong enough to stop me. 

“David!” I shriek, kicking frantically. I can’t see what’s pulling me, where the vines are coming from. It’s getting hard to breathe as they wrap around my chest. I try to throw a fireball but I’m too panicked, my thoughts a slur of fear as my head bounces along the ground. I reach down blindly, trying to get a grip to tear them off me but the deep thorns rip my hands open. Heavy footsteps are thundering around me, and then I hear thick, wet chopping sounds. The vines on my legs shiver and then release me with a human-like shriek. Finally coming to a stop, I scramble to sit up and pull them from my body, shuddering with disgust.

“Here, Emma,” David crouches down next to me, helping me to disentangle myself from the death-vines. He hauls me to my feet, holding me by the shoulders. I can see the firefighters he’d called over, among the first responders for Leroy. Their axes, glinting in the moonlight, come down heavily again and again on the remaining vines. The blades are coated in what looks like blood, but it couldn’t be. Could it? “Emma, I said are you okay?”

I realize David has been talking to me, his voice tuning back in like turning up the volume on a television. “Yeah,” I nod, dazed. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a bit scratched up, but I’m okay.”

David sags a little, his hands strong on my shoulders. “Thank god, that was so - I don’t know what that was.”

“Yeah, welcome to the last week of my life,” I mutter, trying to stop shivering. I don’t know if it’s from the cold or the adrenaline, but my teeth are chattering. 

“Let’s get you out of here, I’m taking you to the hospital to get checked out,” he says softly. “Your mother will want to be here, too.”

“No,” I say strongly, my body seizing at the thought of going anywhere but home. “No, please, I’m not seriously hurt I promise. Just take me home? Please, David?”

He sighs, nodding, and ushers me back through the woods and into his car. Tucked in safely, he drives the short distance to Regina’s, somehow knowing to take me here rather than my apartment. Parked out front, he turns to me. “You know you’re going to have to talk to us eventually, right? Your mother and I?”

“Not necessarily,” I say mostly to myself as I look out the window. Regina’s bedroom light is on, and the kitchen one. It can’t be too late, then. 

“Emma,” David chides. 

I look at him, shrugging. “I’m just not good at that stuff, okay?”

“At saying what you feel?” David asks, his eyebrows raised.

“At feeling,” I answer. 

He takes a breath, nodding. “I think I can understand that. Try...just one feeling at a time. For now. Work your way up to Snow White levels, eventually.”

I laugh, and it feels good, even though my entire body is stinging and throbbing with cuts. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be on her level.” 

David chuckles. “I wouldn’t be so sure. Go get some rest, Emma. We’ll get back to work first thing.”

I nod, reaching for the door handle. “Good night David.”

“Goodnight, kiddo.”

Painfully and with several winces, I make my way up the front walk. All I want is to soak these cuts in a hot bath with a glass of wine, and forget about the world. So of course, the second I open the door, all hell breaks loose.

* * *

“Emma Swan, where in  _ god’s name  _ have you been?!”

Regina accosts me the second I walk inside, eyes flaming as she marches down the main staircase in a silk dressing gown. “What?” I ask meekly, flattening my back against the front door.

“‘ _ What’?  _ Is that all you have to say for yourself?” she fumes, reaching the main floor. “Not a word from you all day, do you know how worried I’ve been?!” 

“I --”

“Did you forget that something is hunting you right now? Did it not occur to you that I might be concerned for your safety?!” she snarls, hands planted firmly on her hips as she stalks towards me. “And even if you don’t care about how I feel, think of Henry, he was asking about you at dinner and I didn’t know what to tell him!”

I hold my hands up in surrender, oddly touched as she worriedly gives me shit. “I’m sorry,” I say quickly, trying to get a word in. Her eyes drop to my bleeding hands, anger turning to concern.

“You’re hurt,” she says softly. “What happened, are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I say as reassuringly as I can given the fact that I’m bleeding pretty much everywhere and I can hear pine needles falling from my hair. “I just need to take a shower and get cleaned up.”

She crosses her arms, taking in my dirty clothes, the bigger cuts bleeding through my shirt. “And then you’ll tell me what happened?” she asks, raising her eyebrows.

“Of course,” I answer. “If you promise not to yell at me again.”

“I promise no such thing,” she answers. Fair enough. “Go use my bathroom,” she orders, pointing upstairs. 

Meekly, I trudge in the direction of her room, trying not to leave a trail of the forest floor behind me as I do. Showering half a tree’s worth of needles and leaves from my hair, the guilt starts to build in my chest. The thing about my avoidance game is that in the past, I’ve done it to people I haven’t really been that close to. Exes, old bosses, parole officers. That kind of thing. I guess it’s different when you push away the people that you really care about. I know if Regina had disappeared for an entire day right now I would have been losing my mind, and by the time I’m done showering, each and every cut singing, I know I owe her a real apology. I pull on a clean sports bra and some shorts, toweling my hair dry as there’s a gentle knock on the bathroom door. “Come in,” I say softly, turning as Regina opens the door. 

Her eyes rove across my naked torso, taking in the puncture wounds speckling over my red, angry skin. “What happened to you?” she asks, her brows pulling together. She steps forward, her fingers absently brushing against the gently oozing cuts.

“I can’t get them to stop bleeding,” I confess, indicating the pile of toilet paper I’d tried to use to apply pressure. 

“Step aside,” she orders, motioning me away from the counter. I obediently move out of the way as she gathers supplies from the medicine cabinet. “What did this?” she asks, stacking a box of gauze and some antiseptic on the counter.

“Uh, evil chicken bone roses?” I answer, raising my eyebrows. She cuts her eyes to me, trying to see if I’m serious. I sigh and explain what happened with Leroy, and the vines in the woods. Her face darkens as she listens. “David is going to have extra patrols on the house tonight, just in case,” I tell her as I finish.

“That was not my primary concern, Emma,” she says seriously, opening a box of bandages. “I’m far more worried about you right now. There’s no telling what those vines were, not without me seeing them for myself. Which means they could hold any kind of curse or poison we don’t know about.”

“I feel okay?” I look up at her hopefully. 

“How very reassuring,” she snorts, turning to me. “I’m not sure bandages and Bactine are going to be the solution to something like this,” she adds, her eyes focusing with concern on the still-bleeding puncture marks on my chest. She sets the boxes in her hands down and comes to stand in front of me. I can feel the warmth from her body against my bare skin. She holds out her hands before looking up at me. “Would it be alright if I…?” 

I nod quickly. “Yeah. Sure.” Pretty sure my voice sounded a little breathless there but I can’t bring myself to care as she brings her hands to my body and closes her eyes. I can’t help the way my breath hitches as she touches me, and I know she can feel my heart slamming against the palms of her hands, but she mercifully chooses not to say anything. 

A soft, purple glow is emanating from her fingertips and I can feel it on my skin, tingling. “Astragalus,” she says after a moment. 

“What?” I ask, dazed. She doesn’t take her hands from me as she looks up at me. 

“It’s a plant that prevents coagulation. I can’t be sure but I think there are at least properties of that in whatever punctured you. I can fix it, but it will take a little while.”

“Oh - okay,” I nod, unable to form actual words. 

She smirks softly, the only indication that she knows how much I am suffering as she closes her eyes again and continues to touch me. Her hands are still glowing softly, eyebrows pulled together in concentration. I can feel the warmth from her magic flowing through me and it feels incredible. Like the sun is shining inside my body. “What are you doing?” I ask breathlessly. 

“Pulling out the poison as best I can,” she replies, eyes still closed. Her thumb sweeps gently across my ribs as she adjusts her hold on me and I suck in a breath. After a minute or so the glow fades, and a quick glance tells me that all of those oozing cuts have faded to almost nothing.

“Thank you,” I say softly.

“Yes, well,” she answers, crossing her arms. “I’m not about to let you bleed to death.”

“Hey,” I reach out to her as she starts to walk away. “Come here,” I repeat her own words back to her, pulling her towards me. She doesn’t resist, sinking into my body as I wrap my arms around her and hold her tightly, one hand cupping the nape of her neck and the other around her waist She clutches at my back tightly and it makes me feel a wave of emotion, affection mixed with guilt. I think about her rushing down the stairs towards me as I came home, about the fear that underlined all that anger. 

“Regina,” I say softly. “I’m really, really sorry I worried you today. I was feeling so overwhelmed and I just wanted to check out, you know?” She says nothing, but I can tell she’s listening intently. “I didn’t think about how that might affect you, though. I’m not used to...having people worry about me.” She makes a non-committal sound in the back of her throat, one that I feel in my chest as she rests her head against me. “And I really do care about your feelings. You know that, don’t you?” I ask, bringing my hands to rest on her hips. Her eyes snap open, lifting her head to look at me. “I care,” I nod at her, my fingers tightening on her waist. “A lot,” I add, for emphasis. 

She swallows heavily, dark eyes shining a little as I lean down and kiss her gently. She sucks in a breath as my lips meet hers, and I half expect her to blast me across the room with her magic, but instead she brings her hands up and buries her fingers in my wet hair, opening her mouth to me. She lets out a soft sound of approval as I sweep my tongue into her mouth, my hands pushing at her hips until she’s backed against the counter. I reach down as I kiss her, cupping her face with one hand and yanking at the belt of her robe with the other. It gapes open as the silk belt hits the floor, sliding off one shoulder, and I slide my hands eagerly inside the opening. She’s wearing a very small, very beautiful matching silk nightgown, because of course she is, and I have to bite back a groan as I ghost my fingers along the outline of her ribs. 

She pants against me, breaking the kiss in shock as I sweep my thumb across her breast, her nipple hardening under my touch. “Sorry, is that too much?” I ask, pulling back. She grabs my hand before it can leave her body.

“Don’t you dare stop, Emma Swan.”

I nearly pass out at the look she’s giving me, at the fact that she’s pinning my hand tightly to her chest. I nod, capturing her mouth again as I slide both hands under her thighs and lift her easily onto the counter. She lets out a sound that should honestly be illegal, because it nearly kills me, as her legs wrap around me, cinching me tightly against her. I’m kissing her messily now, my thoughts a disjointed blur as my hands run over her breasts, rake through her hair, grasp at her thighs. 

She rocks against me, fingertips dipping into the back of my shorts as she devours my mouth. My knees are on the verge of buckling at the feeling of her hands on me. I’ve imagined this an embarrassing amount of times, but no amount of daydreaming could possibly compare to this. To the way her mouth tastes, or the feeling of her nails scraping desperately along my back. I would never have imagined the sounds she’s making, or the way it feels to dig my fingers into the firm muscles of her thighs. And I especially never imagined how it would feel. Lust, yes, of course. Always. But such deep, aching love for her too. Maybe I’m a little better at this feelings thing than I thought. 

I pull back, panting, just needing to see her face. She blinks up at me, her eyes glassy, lips swollen. “Are you alright?” she asks with concern. “We can stop if you -”

“ _ Moms!”  _

Our heads both snap in the direction of Henry’s voice, shrill with panic. Both of us scramble to the doorway, rushing to his bedroom. I push open the door, Regina trailing behind me as she cinches her robe back around her waist. “Henry, what is it?!” My eyes land on him as he stands on his bed, facing away from us. He’s standing so still, staring at a blank spot on the wall. I put an arm out in front of Regina, my heart slamming in my chest. “Henry?” I call him again, softly. He doesn’t move. His little hands are balled into fists, hair stirring in the freezing air coming from his open window.

Swallowing heavily, I step forward and grasp his wrist, turning him towards me. I hear Regina let out a sound of horror, hands clamping over her mouth, as Henry looks down at us with glittering black eyes. His lips are moving softly, I can hear him whispering something. “Henry!” I grab him and pull him down from the bed so he’s standing on the ground, and he moves obediently, his continuous whisper never stopping. 

I look behind my shoulder at Regina, horrified. She’s staring at him, her eyes wide. “I think he might be dreamwalking,” she says in a rush, coming to kneel in front of him. She grabs him by the head, those magical hands of hers lighting up again as she calls his name firmly, shaking him.

“Henry Mills you come home right this instant!”

Henry gasps, blinking, his sweet brown eyes looking at us, stunned. “Moms!” he chokes out, his limbs shaking as he throws himself into our arms. Regina and I engulf him, rocking him as he sobs gently against us. 

“It’s okay, baby,” Regina says softly. “It’s okay, we’re here. You’re safe.”

He pulls back, eyes streaked with tears. “I think I did something bad,” he sobs. "I thought they were just dreams, I didn’t know it was real I  _ swear. _ ” He shakes his head, devastated. 

“Henry,” I tell him, cupping his chin and making him look at me. “Just breathe okay. You’re not in trouble. Whatever you did, we know you didn’t mean to do it. Right, Regina?” I ask, looking at her. She has tears rolling down her face as she nods, smiling.

“That’s right my sweet boy, we know you would never. Please tell us what’s going on.”

“It’s the doll, the one Hook gave me for good luck. I started dreaming that it was talking to me,” he says, hiccupping as he tries to stop the sobs wracking his body. 

“That  _ damned  _ pirate,” Regina curses. “I should have known -”

I nudge her in the ribs and she glares at me. “Go on, Henry,” I tell him, my fear rising.

“And - and it told me to do things. Bad things. And I did them but I didn’t want to! I really didn’t, only I couldn’t stop!”

“What kinds of things did you do, Hen?” I ask, trying my all not to let my voice shake. My fear is slowly being replaced with rage. Rage at this fucking monster for coming after my kid. “I don’t really remember, it’s all so blurry,” he answers in a rush. “I - I put things in your room, I know that. Bad things. And sometimes I would wake up and there was strange stuff in my bed.”

“What kind of stuff, Henry?” Regina asks.

“I hid it, I was scared,” he answers. “I should have told you guys but I didn’t think it was really real,” he shakes his head. 

“Show me, kid,” I tell him firmly. He points under his bed and I stand, very aware I am in only a sports bra and some shorts as I prepare to kick Lich ass. I grab the footboard of his bed and haul it aside, Regina coming to stand in front of Henry protectively. 

I suck in a breath as my eyes land on the pile of things under my son’s bed. Piles of dried leaves, splashes of red pain. Crow’s feathers. Chicken bones. Swallowing down my outrage I turn to him. “Where is it now?”

“I don’t know,” he answers, peeking out from behind Regina. “It sleeps in that,” he points to the sagging, empty-looking demon doll that’s resting at the head of his bed. It’s horrible button eyes are gleaming in the dim light. “It goes out at night, and sometimes I can see what it’s doing when I’m in my dreams, like just now. I tried to wake up and call you but it’s like I was stuck in the dream. It makes me do things for it in the daytime because it’s weak in the daytime.”

“What was the last thing you saw before we woke you up?” I ask.

He looks up at Regina, then back to me. 

“The forest.”

* * *

“Okay, would you please tell me what the hell you’re doing?”

Regina is rushing around Henry’s room, throwing clothes in a duffel bag. She gingerly picks up the evil doll and puts it in a separate shoulder bag, snapping it tightly shut. Henry himself is sitting, sniffling softly in the hallway, surrounded by a protective purple bubble. One that I’m slightly concerned Regina may keep him in for the rest of his life. Bag packed, she drops it gently next to our kid, checking on him quickly before marching into her bedroom. “Packing,” she says matter-of-factly, ripping off her robe as she opens her closet. I turn, not sure if I’m allowed to see this or not, pinching the bridge of my nose.

“Okay, a little more info would be great.”

“We’re leaving Henry with your parents tonight, along with as many protective spells as we can find,” she explains. “And then we’re going to kill this thing. We have its phylactery now.”

“Okay, so can’t we just kill it now?” I ask hopefully.

Her voice sounds muffled, “We don’t have any weapons strong enough for that here, but I was thinking about that while you were  _ gone all day _ ,” she adds with a jab. “And I have an idea for that. Get dressed,” she orders. 

I turn to see she’s already ready to go in jeans and a warm sweater. I grasp her arm as she walks past, stopping her flurry of activity. “But after we kill it, we’re going to figure this out, right?”

She stares at me, motionless. “Figure what out,” she says, but I can tell she knows exactly what I mean. 

“This,” I answer, gesturing between us.

“Emma, now is hardly the time,” she answers stiffly, looking away.

“Really? Because I have a feeling whatever we’re about to do is really dangerous, so I actually can’t think of a better time,” I answer firmly. I’m done running from people and feelings. And I need her to know that.

She looks at me, huffing. “I…” she trails off, and she looks serious. Not exactly the look you’d give someone if you were going to tell them good news. My heart sinks in my chest. “We need to hurry, Emma.”

I nod, dropping her arm and moving to pull some clothes on. My eyes are stinging with tears but I blink them away stubbornly. “Where are we going?” I ask, proud that I manage to keep my voice steady.

I turn back and she’s watching me seriously, warring emotions on her face.

“To the vault.”


	4. Chapter 4

Regina’s car races along the dark highway, the sweep of the headlights slicing across the thick growth of trees lining the road. We left Henry with my confused and half-asleep parents, and every spell of protection Regina knows, a while ago now. The quaint streets of Storybrooke, with jack o'lanterns flickering warmly on the porches and Halloween decorations twisting in the trees give way to the long stretches of woods that line the edge of town, near the town line. As we drive past, shadows caused by the car’s headlights bounce through the mossy tree trunks as we hurtle past, and on more than one occasion I could swear there’s something shifting in the dark spaces between those trees. Something fast. 

“Okay,” I sigh, breaking through the tense silence. “Explain to me why we can’t just magic to your vault? And why exactly we’re taking the extremely scenic route to get there?”

“Because we’re not going to my vault,” she answers, her eyes flicking up to the rearview mirror as she grips the wheel tensely. I glance over my shoulder to check the bag in the backseat behind us and confirm that it’s still closed tightly, the telltale lump motionless. “And because we can’t magic there.”

“Then where are we going?” I frown. Her face is mostly in shadow, no street lamps to light the highway, but I can make out the tension on her face. 

“To someone else’s,” she answers distractedly, her eyes yet again flicking to the mirror. 

“Wait a second, there’s more than one vault of magical shit in this town?” I ask, eyebrows raising.

“Dear,” she clicks her tongue, a glimpse of a smirk on her face. “Everyone of importance in this town has a vault.”

She is so goddamned infuriating, in the kind of way that makes me want to dive across the center console and sink my teeth into the soft skin of her neck. There really are so very many wonderful ways I can think of to wipe that smirk off her face. But instead, because she’s too much of a stubborn jerk to admit that she has feelings for me, I take a breath and ask her, “Okay, so whose vault  _ are  _ we going to then?”

All traces of mocking leave her expression as she replies, “To Gold’s.”

As if to underscore her words, fat drops of rain start to hammer down on the windshield with so much force it sounds like something is pounding on the roof of the car. Regina flicks the windshield wipers on high, the shadow of the pouring rain sliding down her face. “Gold’s?” I ask, straining to see out the windows. “What, a shop full of magical junk isn’t enough for the guy?”

“Well, he is a bit of a hoarder, dear,” Regina quips, carefully navigating us around a tight curve. “I don’t think the man has thrown anything away in at least a century. But still, the items in his shop are things he wants to boast about, lord over people. Things he wants other people to covet, that he can use to gain power and control.” Her lips are pursed with irritation. We both know what it’s like to be on the other end of Gold’s mind games. “The things he has in his vault,” she continues, “are things so dark, so dangerous, even he doesn’t want them to see the light of day.”

I feel a shiver at the tone of her voice. “Then why keep them at all?” I ask, raising my voice above the sound of the hammering rain.

“Some of them would be too dangerous to leave in the hands of others,” she replies, her eyes cutting to me briefly. “And some things are very valuable, no matter how dangerous they are.” A massive bolt of lighting strikes the earth in the distance, the deep roar of answering thunder rumbling in my sternum. Regina’s face is briefly illuminated by the bright flash of light, her eyes glittering as she pauses to take in the spectacle before finally replying.

“And some things are very valuable,  _ because  _ of how dangerous they are.”

* * *

Regina pulls the car over at a seemingly random place on the side of the highway, though the second she cuts the engine, I can feel it. The heavy weight of dark magic, metallic and suffocating somehow. I am most definitely nostalgic for the time before I knew that some magic has a taste. Regina puts a hand on her door and then pauses, turning to me. Without the light of the headlights it’s nearly pitch black in the car, the rain still hammering on the roof so loudly I can hardly think straight. There’s a little moonlight shining through the thick clouds overhead, and that’s how I can see her big, beautiful eyes watching me thoughtfully. She reaches out a hand and cups the side of my face, her thumb brushing my cheek. 

“Stay close to me, do you hear me Emma Swan?” she says intently. “You have no idea what’s out there, and I don’t have time to explain even half of it. So once we get outside, you take my hand, and you do  _ not _ let go. Got it?” I nod wordlessly, too full of emotions for this infuriating woman to speak. She opens her mouth to say something but then closes it, pressing her lips together as she nods quickly. “Good. Let’s go.”

She reaches back and grasps the bag from the backseat, sliding it onto her shoulder before she opens her door and the wind rips through the car, rain slanting sideways into my face. I turn and push my way out on the passenger side, staggering to stay standing in the midst of the raging storm. I have to squint to see through the savage wind and rain, reaching out a hand blindly as I step away from the car. Regina’s warm fingers find mine, and I wrap my hand tightly around hers as we make our way forward into the forest. I can’t help but feel like we’re being swallowed by it somehow, engulfed by the trees and dense undergrowth. The air feels so heavy, thick like syrup with magic, and it’s hard to catch my breath as we continue on, though after a few minutes the trees eventually grow thin enough that we can walk a little more easily. 

“Is it far?” I call to Regina, the howling wind ripping the words from my mouth almost immediately. 

“That would depend on the day,” she shouts back, reaching up to push her wet hair out of her eyes. The freezing rain has soaked us completely, clothing and hair plastered to our bodies as the wind continues to tear at us with every step we take. 

“Perfect,” I answer through gritted teeth. The weak moonlight is filtering through the trees, leeching the color from everything as we push forward, though for the second time tonight I think I see something shifting through the forest around us. I grip Regina’s hand tighter, casting a glance behind us every few moments as her words echo in my head.  _ You have no idea what’s out there.  _ Trudging forward, leaning into the wind, when I first catch a glimpse of the doorway I have no idea what I’m looking at. Squinting in the low light, all I can see is a sort of arch. At first I think it’s a tree, twisted grotesquely in an unnatural position. “What in the hell is that?” I ask, my fingers tightening on Regina’s. 

She cups a hand over her eyes to shield the wind and replies grimly, “The vault.”

“I could swear this thing wasn’t here a second ago,” I answer with confusion. Now that we’re closer I can see there are other things twisted in the arch. Things that look a lot like human bones. 

“It wasn’t,” Regina says matter-of-factly, pulling me towards it. “It appeared because it knows that we’re here.”

“Great,” I grit out, my eyes watering as the wind picks up more strongly than ever. We both have to dig in our heels to stop from getting completely bowled over, and I drop Regina’s hand to brace my arm around her back as we close the final few steps to the arch. The gnarled and twisted root-and-bone combo is even more obvious now and I pull Regina closer against me as I turn to her and shout over the wind ripping between us. “What now?”

She rolls her eyes, and there’s something so comforting about the familiar gesture as she shouts back, “What do you think?!” 

With absolutely no ceremony whatsoever, she grabs my arm and shoves me through.

* * *

“Was that absolutely fucking necessary?!”

‘Would you  _ lower  _ your voice Emma Swan!” Regina hisses, her own voice echoing in the stone chamber. The sudden silence after the raging storm is deafening in a way, though Regina is doing her best to remedy that situation. “And yes of course it was necessary, or were you under the misunderstanding that we were out for an evening stroll in a hellish windstorm?”

“Oh that is rich, all I am asking for is a little warning next time!” I whisper-yell at her. 

“Oh, you’d like a warning would you?” she asks, nostrils flaring, wet hair falling across her dark eyes in a way that makes my mouth go dry. She stalks towards me, her face inches from mine. “There is more danger here than you could possibly understand - than even  _ I _ can understand. You cannot trust anything that you see or hear or touch. If you touch  _ anything,  _ if you so much as  _ look _ at anything other than me, or your own feet, I cannot explain to you how incredibly stupid that would be.” Her chest is rising with her shaking breath, and I can feel my own heart racing in my chest at the intensity on her face. “I fully intend on getting us both out of here very much alive, but in order for that to happen I need you to actually  _ listen  _ to me and do exactly as I say.” She grabs a fistful of the front of my shirt and shakes me hard enough that my teeth rattle. “Do you hear me? Is that enough of a warning for you?”

I nod, reminding myself that this is absolutely not the time to be going for another kiss with Regina Mills, but god do I want to. Something about the combination of her yelling at me, but in a protective way, is absolutely devastating to me. “Yes,” I say softly, my hands coming up to rest gently on the fist that’s still buried in my shirt. She looks at me like maybe I don’t really get the danger here, and probably I don’t. But I just nod and say “Yes,” again, because the truth is I would follow her anywhere - no matter the danger. 

She looks at me for another few seconds, thinking, before she eventually releases my shirt with a nod. “Good,” she says softly, turning away. I take the opportunity to look around - before realizing that is one of the many things she just told me not to do - and notice that Gold’s vault is way different than Regina’s. There are no squishy armchairs or crackling fireplace, no books or stash of wine. Instead we’re just in an empty stone chamber, the smell of damp and rot overpowering. 

I quickly look back at my shoes before I get caught observing anything and ask, “So what exactly are we looking for, anway?”

“We’re looking for a weapon,” is the short reply. Regina flicks her hands towards me and it feels like a gentle blow dryer is being aimed at me, drying my soaking clothes. 

“Thanks,” I grin. “And - what kind of weapon?”

“I’d prefer not to say more,” she replies, looking up. My eyes follow hers and I realize that the light in the room isn’t coming from a lamp, it’s coming from a small magical orb hovering above our heads. It’s giving off a sickly green glow, making everything far more creepy than it already is - which is very. 

“What is that?” I drop my voice to a whisper.

“A sending,” she answers. “A sort of magical concierge. Meant to guide us through the vault, or more likely, confuse the hell out of us and lead us into some magical trap from which we may never return.” The orb glows brighter for a second, and I have this weird feeling that it’s kind of offended. Regina eyes it for a few more moments before turning her attention back to me. “I thought I told you not to look at anything,” she chides.

“But you --?” I sputter. She smirks and turns on her heel, heading out through the doorway behind her - one that I’m pretty sure was not there a second ago. The orb follows her, hovering overhead, and I find myself plunged completely into darkness, a spike of panic rocketing down my spine as I scramble to close the distance between us and reach the safety of the circle of light. “Thanks for abandoning me in the death vault, what was that about us sticking together?” I grumble. Regina doesn’t even bother to turn around, marching forward with the orb bouncing above her like a weird pet bird. Miffed, I keep my eyes trained on her back, obediently looking at nothing else, though I’m already burning with curiosity.

We march on and on through this seriously never-ending hallway, with no turns or openings of any kind, Regina’s spine ramrod straight as she continues to lead us further and further away from the entrance. At first I just try to keep my breathing calm, my eyes trained on the middle of Regina’s back, the messenger bag thumping rhythmically against her hip. But after what, fifteen, twenty minutes of walking in a straight line? I start to get a little antsy. I feel like we’re going deeper and deeper underground, the dark surrounding our tiny circle of light getting denser and more oppressive somehow. My eyes start to flicker left and right before I shake my head, forcing my sightline back on Regina.  _ No.  _ Be good, Emma. Only I can hear something skittering along beside us, something with light clicking claws, just out of sight in the dark. 

“Regina, do you hear that?” I ask, my voice tight with rising panic. She ignores me, instead walking faster as she continues this endless slog through the dark. “Regina, hey,” I call out to her back. “Do you seriously not hear this? How much farther are we going, anyway? Shouldn’t we stop and make a plan or something?” She ignores me again and I feel irritation ripping through me. “Hey!” I call out, reaching out to grab her by the arm, I pull on her until she spins around, and the thing that I am looking at is definitely  _ not  _ Regina Mills. It has no face at all, just a smooth, bone-white surface where a face would be. I scream in shock, staggering backwards as the thing continues to stare at me - which is sort of hard to do considering it has no eyes. I stumble back and fall flat on my ass as the orb blinks out completely, plunging me into complete darkness. 

So I do what any Savior would do in this kind of situation. 

I freak the fuck out.

* * *

“Emma,  _ Emma!” _

Regina’s voice is echoing through the dark, distant and small, and I force myself to calm the hell down and find her. “Regina!” I call out, the darkness swallowing my voice. I take a breath and try to make some light, only I don’t want to, I don’t want to see the thing that’s out there, the not-Regina with its not-face. I swallow down the fear and focus, but my magic won’t come to me, it feels far away, faint. I push myself up until I’m standing, disoriented in the dark, and try to find a wall to walk along. But no matter how far I go, in any direction, there is no wall. There’s nothing. And my fingertips are trembling because I’m just waiting to feel the soft, cold flesh of whatever the hell that was. I can see it in my mind’s eye, standing pale and motionless in the darkness.

“Emma?” Regina’s voice cuts through the dark, closer now, and then like a knight in shining armor, she comes bursting through the wall I couldn’t seem to find in a shower of stone and dust. The orb above her head is flickering in panic - clearly it's not used to the guests here tearing down the goddamn walls. “Oh thank god,” she sighs with relief as I rush towards her. “Are you hurt?”

I reach the safety of her, grabbing her by the upper arm. “Go, go!” I yell at her, glancing behind me as I shove her back through the hole she made. She doesn’t question me, just scrambles back through and reaches back for me, hauling me in after her. “Close it, hurry!” I tell her, my eyes searching the dark. They light on something out there, a flash of pale skin and dark hair standing motionless. Regina quickly fixes the hole she blasted in the wall, her eyes not on the void but on me as I pant with relief, sagging against the wall. 

“Are you hurt?” she asks, stepping towards me. I reach out and crush her to me, needing to feel the real, warm, breathing version of her against me. Maybe she doesn’t want to be with me, aside from the occasional makeout session, but at least she cares about me enough to let me slowly crush the breath out of her as I hold her in a vice-like grip. “Emma?” she says softly, her hands raking gently through my hair.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” I say quietly into her neck. I’m not - not even close actually. But I don’t have time to be anything but okay, so that’s what I choose to be right now. 

“Emma you’re shaking,” she says softly. Her hands are smoothing down my back and I pull her tighter still. 

“I’ll be fine,” I say, my voice trembling. “Just give me a minute.” I can feel her nodding against me, and I let myself burrow deeper into her for another few moments before releasing her. I tuck my hair behind my ear, embarrassed at my less-than-Savior-like freak out. “So this place is pretty messed up, huh?” I say lightly, laughing nervously.

She scoffs, rolling her eyes. “I do believe I mentioned that, Sheriff.”

“Yeah, I seem to remember something like that,” I answer, rubbing the back of my neck.

Regina clasps my upper arm, her eyes checking me for injuries. “I’m so sorry we got separated, I didn’t realize the sending was only attached to me.”

“Yeah, thanks for that you little shit,” I look up, flipping off the orb hovering above our heads. It brightens with outrage. “It’s not your fault,” I add, looking back at Regina. Her forehead is still wrinkled with worry. “I’m okay, really.” 

Her eyes continue to glance over me before she nods with satisfaction. “Very well. Let’s press on.” Turning from me, she starts to make her way down a similar hallway from the one I just came from, narrow, damp stone walls on either side. The sight of her back, dark hair shining under the eerie green light, sends a shiver of revulsion through my body and I trot up next to her. She gives me a sideways glance, her mouth pulling into a hint of a smile, but says nothing.

The corridor stretches out endlessly in front of us, and at times it feels like we’re not really moving at all. With only the tiny circle of light from the sending to see by, it feels like we’re on a treadmill, covering the same never-ending stretch. I keep Regina’s advice in mind and plant my gaze directly onto the stone floor, looking only at my own feet as we trudge onward. Now that I’ve seen just one of the things out there, lurking in the dark, I have no problem keeping my eyes from drifting to either side. Still, I can feel something out there, behind us.

The hair on the back of my neck is prickling with dread, and every so often I hear an odd shuffling. The presence only gets more and more oppressive as we move forward, and I can’t ignore it any longer. “Regina…” I say in a hush.

“I know,” she answers, her features dark. She doesn’t look at me. “Just ignore it,” she says softly. 

“Ignore it?!” I hiss in a whisper. It feels closer now, bigger.

“Sometimes the more attention you give these things, the more they feed off of you. Ignore it. And do  _ not  _ turn around,” she adds, cutting her eyes to me. 

I swallow heavily, the urge to look over my shoulder nearly overwhelming. She must sense that because she grasps my chin and turns it sharply ahead. We keep walking but my breathing is becoming more panicked. All I can think about is what’s behind us. It feels  _ big.  _ It feels tall. So impossibly tall. I can feel it leering down at me, so small and insignificant to it. My heart is pounding in my ears as I force myself not to turn around, scrunching my eyes shut to avoid the temptation.

_ Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look. _

“Emma.”

Regina’s calm voice pulls me from my spiral of fear. We’ve stopped moving, her hand out in front of me to stop me from walking straight into the door in front of us. I open my eyes, blinking in confusion. The feeling is gone - whatever was stalking us, hunting us, is gone now. I turn around to check and Regina clicks her tongue in irritation. But there’s nothing there. I turn back around and see why she’s stopped us. We’re standing in front of a door. 

“Well this looks promising,” I say bleakly. Regina grimly crosses her arms, taking in the doorway. It’s made of rotting wood, deep scratches etched into the surface of the door that make me shudder to look at. The handle is rusted and ancient-looking, and there’s a spattering of dark stains near the bottom that I don’t even want to think about right now. I glance to Regina and see that her head is tilted, listening. 

“Do you hear that?” she asks, turning to me.

I do. There’s a voice on the other side of the door, muffled. I can’t hear what it’s saying, but it’s unmistakably someone - some _ thing -  _ talking quickly. The voice goes high and then low, and when I look down I can see there’s light coming from underneath the door. The voice continues, urgent, muffled, making my hairline prickle with fear for some reason as I watch a shadow move under the door. “Should we go in?” I ask, turning to Regina. She glances from me to the terrifying doorway, the voice getting louder, pushing its way into the hall. 

“We have no choice,” she answers with determination. “Together?” she adds, looking to me.

I nod, though my hands are trembling. “Together.”

In that moment, the sending goes dark, and we’re once again in total black.

“ _ Shit,  _ not again,” I choke out, reaching out for Regina’s cool fingers. She wraps her hand tightly around my own as I try to control my breathing. “Where the hell did that sending go?” Regina doesn’t answer, just holds my hand more tightly. I refuse to give in to my panic again, taking calming breaths as I force my magic to respond to me. Light flickers in the palm of my hand, and I turn to Regina, triumphant, to see nothing but the empty hallway standing next to me. The feeling of her hand in mine has disappeared, and now I wonder as I think of how  _ cold  _ those fingers were, whether they were really hers at all.

“Regina!?” I shout, turning in place. She’s gone. But the door is still there. Swearing, terrified, I rush forward, twist the creaking handle, and push.

* * *

I’m expecting something horrible.

More faceless Regina wannabes, or something far worse, something worse than even my overactive imagination can conjure up. So I’m pretty pleasantly surprised when I walk into the room and see nothing but an apple. It’s sitting on a stone table, the only thing in the room, and it’s lit from within somehow. All thoughts of finding Regina, of finding the weapon we’re looking for and getting out of this place, slide pleasantly from my head as I focus on this exquisite, beautiful apple. I realize as I get closer, because I’m somehow already across the room now, that it’s not a real apple at all. It’s made of a glittering ruby the size of my fist, complete with an emerald leaf on top. My eyes widen as it glistens in the light, every facet sparkling brilliantly. The 18 year old thief in me is having a really hard time not calculating how much this thing would be worth.

It may not be real, but I could swear as I get closer that I can smell it. It smells like a real apple. It smells like summer. Like warm leaves dappled in sunlight, like apple blossoms opening on a golden afternoon. Like blue skies and sweet grass and freedom and youth and days that stretch on forever. And even though it looks like it’s made of a beautiful ruby, it feels like a real apple. A small, quiet part of my brain realizes that I’m holding it even though I don’t remember picking it up. Regina’s voice reminding me very strictly not to touch anything echoes in my head, but I know she would forgive me this once. It’s the most incredible, exquisite thing I have ever seen. 

I feel its flesh, crisp and bouncy against my fingertips. It feels warm, like sunlight, like I just picked it from the tree. I can feel a breeze sifting through my hair, the summer sunshine warm and lazy on my neck. I can hear the drone of a fat bee, drunk on honey as it bounces from blossom to blossom. My eyes don’t leave the apple as I stare at it in wonder. Something deep inside of me just  _ knows  _ that it would taste so good. I feel in the very marrow of my bones that one bite from this apple would solve every problem I have ever had. I can practically taste the sweet juice running down my chin. I can almost feel the peace in my body it would bring. The ruby glows brighter as I marvel at it, as deep a crimson as the freshest arterial blood. I raise it to my mouth, my face flushing with anticipation, lips opening to taste --

“Emma,  _ stop! _ ”

Regina’s hand on my wrist startles me back to reality. I blink at her, stunned. “Regina?” I shake my head, feeling dizzy, almost drunk. The orb is back, hovering above us now, and it shows Regina’s horrified face as she grasps my arm tightly. “What just happened?” 

“You nearly did something very foolish,” she replies intensely, her breath coming rapidly as she glances at my hand. I look back and see that the apple has turned black and rotten looking, black sludge oozing from it. I start and drop it with disgust and it makes a wet, splattering noise as it hits the table, maggots pouring from where it splits open. 

“Oh god,” I shudder, stepping back quickly with revulsion. I still feel light headed and I bring my hands up to my face. “I fucking hate this place,” I mumble through my fingers.

“I rather think that’s the point,” Regina says resignedly. “Well. I’m glad you’re alright.” I drop my hands to look at her and see an odd pattern of bruises going up her arm.

“What about you, are you okay?” I ask, stepping forward and sweeping my thumb across the angry flesh of her forearm.

“I’m alright,” she replies stoically. “Our little friend here apparently wanted to separate us. Divide and conquer, as they say. I had a little run-in of my own in my attempts to find you. But I’d rather not get into it,” she adds darkly.

I glare up at the orb, glowing down at us innocently. “ _ You, _ ” I seethe, grabbing the maggoty apple and hurling it at the sending. It zooms out of the line of fire and comes back around, blinking at me indignantly. I don’t know how a ball of light has this much personality but I’m getting really sick of this attitude. “What the hell is the matter with you!? Would you quit screwing around and help us out?”

“Emma,” Regina scolds, her face seeming to shift in the light as the sending continues to shift angrily. “You cannot blame a sending for its nature, it’s simply doing what it was created to do.” I glare at the orb, crossing my arms in irritation, and I swear to god it looks smug. “Enough bickering, let’s go.”

Regina casts a stern look at the sending and it seems to smarten up a little, moving towards the edge of the room where a red door that most definitely has a “Final Boss” look to it waits menacingly. Regina marches up to it in her no-nonsense fashion and yanks it open, stepping through. I follow closely behind her, pushing my way into the perfectly round room. My shoes echo wetly on the damp, stone ground as we come to the center of the room and look down, anxiety gripping my chest.

In the middle of this circular room is a bathtub. An old, cast-iron, clawfoot tub that in different circumstances would be the kind of thing Snow would fawn over in a home decorating magazine. Only this one is rusted, cracking, and looks like about a hundred atrocities have been committed inside of it. I step closer to it, stomach dropping, and see that it’s full of something. At first I think it’s water, but after a moment I realize it’s black. Some kind of oil, maybe. I absolutely hate that that is the best case scenario here. “Well,” Regina says lightly, shrugging off her coat and draping it over a rusting metal chair. She takes the messenger bag with the phylactery in it and stacks it neatly on top, like she’s undressing in her bedroom and not in the middle of some nightmare. 

“Well, what?” I ask, jaw dropping. “You’re not actually planning on getting in that thing?!”

“Of course I am. What else are we here for?” she says with irritation, like  _ I’m  _ the crazy one.

“Regina, you have got to be kidding me,” I argue, rounding the tub to face her. “You cannot be serious.”

She unbuttons her top, shrugging it off to reveal a really pretty lace camisole that has me briefly blacking out. “Emma, you’ve seen how this works. Where the sending takes us, we have to go. And I’ve realized it already knows exactly what we’re looking for. If we can pass its little tests then we can have it. Simple as that.”

_Little_ _? Simple?!  _ I am sputtering as she kicks off her shoes, setting them neatly next to the chair. Seeing her beautifully painted toenails contrasted against the slimy stone floor finally snaps something in me. I grasp her by the arms, forcing her to look at me. “Regina this is insane! You have no idea what’s going to happen when you get in that thing.”

“No,” she answers firmly, tilting her chin up. The scar on her lip looks deep in the shadowy green light and I want to press my mouth to it. I want to wrap her up and carry her out of this place. “But we both know what  _ will  _ happen if I don’t. So that is all there is to it.” I know that she’s right, of course she’s right. But I hate that she is.

“Fine,” I choke out. “But I’m going, not you.”

“Absolutely not, Emma.”

“Regina -”

“No,” she cuts me off. “Whoever gets in this tub needs to have full control of their magic in order to combat whatever is going to happen. And I think we both know that ‘controlled’ is not the way that either of us would describe your current handle on your magical abilities.” I open my mouth to argue, but I can’t deny that I never know exactly what is going to happen when I use my magic.

“I can’t let you do this,” I say softly, stepping closer.

“Emma Swan, you are most certainly not going to ‘let’ me do anything,” she says bitingly. “I am choosing to do this because I am a grown woman.”

And this is exactly why I am so crazy about her. I sigh, nodding. “Right.”

She puts her hands on my waist. “If I don’t come back in sixty seconds, pull me out.”

“Okay,” I say as firmly as I can. We both look at each other, refusing to say anything that might possibly sound like a goodbye. “Sixty seconds and then you are back here,” I confirm, trying to keep my voice steady.

“Of course,” she says casually. “But, if I don’t…”

“No,” I shake my head. “There is no other option. There is no plan B. You come back to me and to Henry. In sixty seconds.” I stare at her hard, raising my hands from her shoulders to grasp the sides of her head.

“Sixty seconds,” she echoes, her eyes bright. I want to kiss her so badly, and I think I can see that she wants the same thing. But I think that, too, would be way too much like a goodbye. Instead, she nods firmly and pulls away, bare feet slapping gently on the wet ground. I turn to sling the messenger bag with the doll over my own shoulder, refusing to let it out of my sight, and when I turn back she’s standing next to the tub, bracing herself quietly for a moment. 

She takes a steadying breath that I’m pretty sure she thinks I can’t see before putting a hand on the rusted edge of the tub and putting one foot in. I move closer, ready to pull her out if anything tries to eat her, but so far so good. She puts her other foot in and lowers herself down, the oily liquid swallowing her up to her neck. Both of her hands are still gripping the edge of the tub tightly, her knuckles white. 

I stand as close to her as I can, watching for any sign of trouble. Nothing happens. There’s a faint dripping sound echoing through the room, the soft metallic clink of something on the other side of the wall. Still nothing. “Maybe this isn’t what we’re supposed to do?” I say in a hush.

“No. It is,” Regina answers resignedly. “I think I just need to be completely submerged.”

“Right,” I answer calmly. Fuck, fuck, fuck. “Of course.” She gives me one last, long look, and I see so much in her eyes before she nods once, takes a deep breath, and goes under. There isn’t so much as a ripple as she sinks from view, the surface of the oil so still it’s like she was never there. I pull my phone out and set the timer for 60 seconds, my eyes flicking between the calm surface of the tub, and my phone. The seconds drag by, and my heart is starting to pound, my spine so tense it feels like it’s ready to snap. Any second now. I glance back to the stopwatch and see that something is wrong. It’s stuck at 45 seconds. I suck in a breath, shaking my phone as though that will restart the timer. Instead, the numbers start to scramble, flickering to random numbers before resetting at zero. I panic, my eyes shooting back to the surface of the liquid. It’s so black there is no reflection of light, no chance of seeing what might be going on beneath. “Fuck!” I hiss, kneeling next to the tub. 

The sending above me starts to blink rapidly, a warning. The room disappears from view every few seconds as it blinks in alarm, like it’s screaming at me to do something. I reach into the tub, ready to haul Regina out, but my hand finds nothing. I skim my fingers along the length of the tub, shoulder deep in the slick substance, and the only thing my fingers touch is the rough, uneven bottom.

She’s gone.

And with exactly zero seconds of forethought, I jump in after her.

* * *

There’s a certain feeling you get when you’re alone in the world.

Completely alone, I mean. 

It’s a feeling that settles in your ribcage, wraps around your heart. A weight. But also somehow, a hollowness. The feeling of knowing that no one knows where you are. No one is looking for you. The feeling of knowing that the only thing between you and living in your car is your own goddamned wits. Except maybe you didn’t have anybody to teach you how to  _ be  _ in the world. How to wake up at regular times, hold down a job, toe the line. Maybe you’ve had to survive so long that you keep getting fired from every shitty gas station job because your knee-jerk reaction to having your ass grabbed is still to elbow a guy in the solar plexus, even when you know he’s signing your paychecks. 

There’s a sort of desperation in every moment. The wondering of “Is this it? Is this when it falls apart?” It’s been so long since I’ve felt that desperation. It took a long time to let it go, but now it’s like it never really left. Now it’s like it was always waiting, crouched in a damp corner, ready to slide back under my skin. 

It’s all I can feel now that I’m here.

Nowhere.

When I jumped in the tub, I fully expected to break my face on the cast-iron bottom. Instead, I sank down, down, down. I feel weightless, cold. I can’t see anything, I don’t even know if my eyes are open and the feeling is disorienting. I reach out my hands to feel for Regina, the ground, anything to anchor me, but I touch nothing. I don’t even know if I’m moving now. All I can feel is a heavy, cold, weight in my chest. That aching loneliness that I know so, so well. I try to fight it, try to push it aside, but it’s so heavy. 

That old, familiar, sadness has wrapped itself around my heart, so oppressive that I’m struggling to breathe. The loneliness surges through my limbs, weighing me down. The feelings of  _ failure  _ and  _ wrong  _ and  _ unlovable  _ twist in my chest. Why am I doing this? Why am I even trying? I can’t think straight. I can’t do it. I fall to my knees, wrapping my arms around my head as the voice in my head presses down on me. 

Please, please, please. 

Just let it end.

My phone falls out of my pocket as I lean forward, and the bright light in the darkness is blinding. My lock screen is a picture of Regina and Henry, candid, smiling at each other. The image of the two of them swims into my field of vision, blurry through the tears I didn’t even realize were there. The sight of them, my people, my family, lights me up inside. I hear a familiar voice telling me to accept my worth, no matter what others might have to say. It chases that grey, heavy feeling from the corners of my mind, filling me with determination. “Regina.”

I wipe my eyes on my sleeve and stand, turning in place. She’s here. I know she is. I always know where she is because it’s like some piece of me is tied to her. To her infuriating, beautiful, brilliant, stubborn self. I let her fill my mind, her smell and her taste and her touch, the feeling of her mouth on mine, and I start to walk. I don’t let the thought of her leave me, not for a moment. My steps get quicker, surer, the dim light of my phone barely lighting the dark as I push forward. 

I see her in the distance, lying on her side with her back to me, and I start to run. She can’t be dead. She cannot be fucking dead. My heart is in my throat as I throw myself to my knees and roll her on to her back. “Regina!?” I feel for a pulse in her neck and let out a sob of relief as I feel her heartbeat slamming against my fingertips. She makes a soft moaning sound, her arm falling heavily to her side. I can see her fingers are wrapped tightly around a small dagger, gilded with silver filigree. Carefully, I wrestle it loose from her hand and zip it in my coat pocket. “Come on, we’re getting out of here,” I tell her softly, reaching under her to pick her up and standing a little unsteadily.

Closing my eyes, I do what I’ve learned to do in moments like this, something that still feels foreign to me, but I’m getting better at it.

I trust myself.

Diving deep into my magic, into that well of light that sits just behind my heart.

I open it, and I let it light up the dark.

* * *

“What part of sixty seconds do you not understand Regina Mills?!”

Regina blinks up at me, her beautiful, beautiful eyes staring into mine in disbelief. “Emma?”

She’s still in my arms, her hair trailing back as she looks up at me. We’re standing in a big atrium sort of thing, with a ceiling so high I can’t see the top. I have no idea where I’ve brought us but I’m hoping it’s better than that depression pit. The stupid sending is circling happily above us, zooming around like a dog in a park. “Would you calm down, I can’t see!” I yell at it. It blinks cheerfully and does three figure eights around my head. I look back down at Regina and her eyes look clearer now as she shifts, adjusting in my arms until she’s in an upright position.

“Are you carrying me?” she asks indignantly, and I let out a laugh of frustrated relief. 

“Thank god you’re okay,” I sigh, setting her down. 

“I don’t know what happened,” she says in confusion, shaking her head. I have my hands on her waist to steady her as she looks up at me. “I just felt so…” 

“Yeah. Me too,” I nod. 

“You jumped in after me?”

“Of course I did, dummy,” I answer affectionately. “And by the way, you’re no longer allowed to mock my magic skills, since I just used them to save your ass for the second time in like a week.”

“I make no such agreement,” she says stubbornly. 

“Regina!”

“Wait,” she holds up a hand, looking around frantically. “Where is it?”

“Oh, you mean this?” I unzip my pocket and haul out the dagger she was holding, flipping it once in my hand before catching it fairly impressively by the hilt.

She looks like she’s about to have an aneurysm. “Emma Swan do not let me see you tossing around one of the most dangerous magical artifacts in this entire goddamned vault like it was a child’s toy!” She snatches it from my hand as I raise my eyebrows in surprise. “The fact that you didn’t die after shoving it haphazardly into your pocket is a miracle in and of itself!”

“Would you stop yelling at me for a second and go back to the part where I saved you please!?”

She grasps my chin in the fingers of one hand, the other still holding the dagger tightly, and my eyes widen as I contemplate whether she might actually stab me, before she kisses me swiftly. Our lips make a smacking noise as she pulls back, still holding my face. “Thank you, you complete idiot!” she snarls. 

_ What a tender moment.  _

A soft voice cuts through the air. Both of us turn swiftly in place to see the Lich standing in the center of the atrium, the soft green glow of the sending casting its already macabre features into even more gaunt lines. Its big, wide, curved smile glistens as it stands perfectly still. 

Regina holds the dagger aloft, her breathing ragged with fear. The three of us stand there, frozen, for what feels like an eternity before it starts to move. It doesn’t walk. It keeps its smile plastered firmly on its face, hands clasped gently in front of it, as it glides smoothly towards us. I hurl a useless fireball at it, the ball of energy glancing off its shoulder without even slowing it down. Regina, barefoot and wild-eyed, launches herself at it with her arm raised. 

She drives the blade of the dagger home, sinking it deeply into the Lich's chest. It stops moving, looking down on her beatifically as she pants with terror, her hands still on the hilt of the dagger. 

_ Yes _ . It smiles.  _ So tender. _ It reaches out and grabs her swiftly by the throat, picking her up and tossing her easily to the side. She lands in a heavy heap several feet away, eyes closed. My mouth is open in frozen horror as it turns its gaze back to me. I can see Regina is still breathing and so all I can do is hope and pray that she’ll be alright as I focus back on the monster in front of me. The dagger falls from its chest, clanking uselessly on the floor.

_ Unwanted. _ The Lich smiles, gliding forward, circling me. _ Unloved.  _ Its dark, hollow eyes glitter with malice.  _ Nothing.  _

I know what it’s doing. I know. And it doesn’t work. “You’re too late,” I smile, reaching down to pick up the pointless dagger on the ground. 

_ Useless. _ It hisses, circling closer, the toes of its shoes dragging gently on the ground.  _ Orphan.  _

The dagger fits perfectly in my hand, cold and heavy. I look back up at the Lich. “It isn’t working,” I answer, my voice louder. 

_Unlovable_ _. _ It grins, gliding ever closer.  _ Wrong.  _

“No,” I say softly, opening the messenger bag. “See I used to believe all that. Sometimes maybe I still do. That I’m not good.” I laugh softly, my hands trembling as I wrap my fingers around the doll and slowly pull on it. “But what is good? What does that even mean?” I ask, shaking my head. I lift the doll out of the bag, holding it behind my back. “I recycle. I donate to charity - sometimes. I love the people in my life. Is that good? Is there really any such thing?”

The Lich pauses, smile plastered but stiff as it tracks what I’m doing. I drop the doll on the ground. “It’s the choices we make that matter, that tell us who we really are. And I choose to believe that I have value, even when I make mistakes. Even when I fuck up. But especially when I don’t.” Its eyes widen, a hand stretching out to me as I raise the dagger and bring it down straight through the doll's chest. The Lich makes a truly horrifying noise as its face contorts in pain, arching its back. The doll is writhing under my hands as I drive the dagger in deeper. I don’t feel fabric ripping, or stuffing. I feel flesh and bone, and it makes me sweat with disgust as I push with such strength that it buries itself in the crumbling stone floor beneath. 

I look up and see Regina crawling slowly towards me, eyes wide as the Lich writhes with rage. I reach out for her and we wrap our arms around one another as we watch it die. It has a wound in its chest, in the same spot that the dagger is currently resting in the doll. Scrolls of parchment, covered in black sludge, pour out of its chest cavity, one after the other until the Lich is nothing but a pile of rags and wet, sopping parchment. Regina raises a hand, shaking, and the remnants erupt in flames. 

We collapse against each other, her head resting on my shoulder, as we watch it burn for a long, long time. 

* * *

What happens next is sort of a blur.

The sending leads us through the hell maze in what appears to be a very short and direct route that has me glaring at it as we reach the front entrance. It blinks at me in response, something that feels like both an apology and a regretful goodbye. The feeling is not mutual.

Regina and I stagger through the now-calm woods and get back to the car, dazed and blinking in the early morning light as I drive us both home, gripping the wheel so tightly it creaks, until Regina rests her hand on mine. I glance at her, hair disheveled, covered in bruises, a bright look in her eyes. She smiles at me with relief and exhaustion, and I find myself smiling back as she leans back in the passenger seat and closes her eyes.

Henry shows us where he’s unwittingly been helping the Lich store its stash of souls. Regina is horrified and I am extremely amused to find out that they’ve been residing in his PS4. Regina swears me to secrecy, making me promise that I won’t tell Gold his precious immortal soul was hanging out for days in our kid’s video game console. And she’s absolutely not keeping it quiet for his sake - it’s because she wants to be the one to tell him. And knowing her, she’ll wait until the most devastating moment possible. I only hope that I’m there for it. 

As we take the souls one by one to reanimate their owners, Leroy especially humble and grateful, I feel the exhaustion of the last few days weighing on me. Regina turns to me in the late morning sunshine, the police station now empty of petrified victims, and smiles at me tiredly. I raise my hand to reach out to her, wanting nothing more than to pull her against me, when David walks into the station and engulfs me in a hug. “I’m so glad you’re okay, sweetheart,” he says against the side of my head. I sink into him, letting myself feel everything. “Your mother and I are so proud of you,” he says tightly. I take a deep breath, processing those words for a moment before pulling back to look up at him. 

“Thanks,” I smile. I look over his shoulder, eager to remind him that I didn’t do this alone, but Regina is gone, her chair empty. “You want a ride home, honey?” David asks me, his eyes full of warmth. “I’d say you’ve earned a few days off.”

I feel disappointment in my gut as I cast my glance around, looking for Regina before accepting that she’s gone. “Sure,” I answer distractedly. 

“Home sounds good.”

* * *

I spend the next couple of days moping around my apartment.

I clean everything, rearrange my bedroom (no more mirrors, thank you), actually cook myself dinner, do all the grown up sort of things that I’ve been putting off. But in between the long runs and the hot showers and the several shots of whiskey to help me sleep, my phone is completely silent. Well, not silent. I get messages from lots of people, especially Henry, checking in. But not a single text or call from her. 

I don’t get it. It all seemed so good. It felt like she really wanted...Whatever. I was wrong. That’s fine. I throw my annoyingly silent phone aside on the couch and run my fingers through my hair. I could always go by their place and check in, but if she wanted to see me she would have called me. Right? Probably. I think so. Jesus. I groan, getting to my feet and resolving to think about anything other than her for the next sixty minutes when there’s a firm knock at my front door.

I pull it open to see Regina Mills standing on my doorstep in a witch costume.

“Regina?” I gape, my eyebrows shooting up.

She’s wearing a devastatingly low-cut black dress, a black cape that’s tied at her throat, and a matching witch’s hat. It tilts back a little in the evening breeze as she shifts her chin up, an edge of determination in her eyes. “You’re not dressed,” she says frankly, looking me up and down. I’m in sweats and a tank top, infinitely grateful I chose to put on a clean shirt today at the very least.

“Dressed for what?” I ask as she pushes past me to step inside my apartment. The scent of firecrackers is already present in the crisp air as I shut the door and I realize that tonight is Halloween. 

“For the party,” she replies, crossing her arms as she turns to face me. Her lips are an even deeper red than usual, and the act of crossing her arms is causing her already substantial cleavage to nearly spill out of her dress.

“Party?” I ask distractedly, dragging my eyes up to meet her gaze.

“Of course, didn’t you get your invite? Your mother invited the entire town.” I cast a sheepish glance at my embarrassingly neglected stack of mail and see a tell-tale pumpkin-shaped card peeking out from among the stack.

“Must have missed it,” I shrug.

“Well get dressed, there’s still time,” she answers impatiently. I’m feeling a little impatient myself, though. “Costumes aren’t mandatory.”

“You just left,” I shake my head, refusing to play along. “At the station,” I explain, stepping closer. The tie at her throat bobs as she swallows heavily, looking up at me from her thick lashes. “Why did you do that?”

She pulls the hat from her head and tosses it on the couch, refusing to look at me. “I don’t know.”

“That isn’t good enough,” I answer. “Not by a long shot.”

She turns to me sharply. “You faced your demons in that vault,” she says seriously. “Didn’t you? Well I did, too.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” I ask, shaking my head.

“I never said I faced them and won,” she answers. I think of her unconscious in the dark when I found her, clutching the dagger. The feelings I had to fight to get to her. 

“Oh,” I answer in a small voice.

“Yes,” she replies, watching me carefully for a moment. “I care for you, Emma,” she confesses. “Very, very much.” I swallow down a lump of emotion as I watch her struggle to speak. “I know I’ve been unfair to you, and I’m sorry. For confusing you.”

I cross my arms, waiting for her to continue. “You’ve done so well since you came here,” she says, gesturing to me. “You’ve grown so much. You have a family now, friends. A life.” She sighs heavily, her eyes glistening with tears. “You have a lot to lose.”

I shake my head. “What do you mean?”

She steps closer to me. “I mean that this one good deed isn’t going to be enough for them all to forget what I’ve done. And if we were to...well then you have every chance of losing all the things you’ve worked so hard for. And I can’t be responsible for that,” she shakes her head firmly. “I want you to be happy, Emma, more than anything. And so I can’t be selfish here. As much as I want to be.”

Oh this sweet, infuriating woman. “You know,” I tell her, taking a step closer. “Someone a lot wiser than me once told me that it’s important to know your own value, outside of what other people think.”

She glares at me, crossing her arms. “That hardly applies here.”

“Oh no?” I ask, inching closer. “So I’m just supposed to accept that everyone thinks you’re a terrible person - which I don’t think is true, but the way - and walk away from you? And that seems reasonable to you?” She takes a shaking breath, eyes following me as I step closer. “What about how  _ you’ve _ grown? What about the life that you’ve created?” She doesn’t answer, her breath coming quickly as she watches me. “To hell with everyone else, Regina,” I tell her fiercely. “I know what I think. I know what Henry thinks. Outside of that, nothing else matters.” I step closer, grasping her hips and backing her gently against the wall. “So if you think I’m going to let other people decide how I feel about you,” I say softly, stepping into her space. “Then you’re wrong.”

“Well,” she huffs, my face inches from hers as I lean down. “I suppose when you put it like that --”

I swallow her words as I kiss her swiftly, and she lets out a soft sound as her arms slide up to wrap around my neck. She opens her mouth to me and I sweep my tongue against hers, sinking my fingers into her hips. I feel her wrap an orange-and-black striped leg around my waist and reach down, hitching her thigh on my hip as I pin her tightly against the wall and kiss her so thoroughly we’re both gasping for air. “Can I take this off? Please?” I ask, not even a little embarrassed to be begging as I rest my fingers on the laces on the front of her dress. 

“Yes,” she pants, raking her fingers through my hair as I grab the front laces to her gown and pull them loose. I plant open-mouthed kisses to her neck, drawing all sorts of incredible sounds from her as I grasp either side of her bodice and yank. The top of her gown splits open in a flurry of unraveled laces and smooth skin, her breasts laid bare. 

“Holy shit,” I choke out at the sight of Regina Mills, lipstick smeared, lips swollen, hair disheveled, and completely undone. She grabs my hand and plants it on her chest, squeezing hard, and it’s all I can do to stay standing as I take the hint and take over. Her head falls back against the wall, eyes closed, as I replace my hand with my mouth. 

“Emma,” she grits out, her voice strangled. “Take me to bed. Now.”

“Yes, Mayor Mills,” I reply, scooping her up. Her legs wrap around me as her mouth finds mine, kissing me deeply as I carry her to my room. 

She pulls back, face troubled as she says, “Wait a second…”

“It’s okay,” I grin against her mouth. “No mirrors, magical markings, or other nightmare-inducing crap, I promise.”

She smiles, really smiles, so wide and warm that my knees nearly buckle. “Good.” 

I carry her into my room and drop her on my thankfully-made bed, pulling her dress the rest of the way off until she’s wearing only black, lace underwear, and thigh-high witch stockings. My heart is racing at the sight of her looking up at me. “Get over here,” she growls, my stomach flipping. I crawl onto the bed towards her and she reaches up and grasps the hem of my shirt, lifting it up and off. The feeling of my skin on hers as she pulls me down on top of her is incredible, and I find that my thoughts are a disjointed slur of lust and adoration and disbelief as I kiss her senseless, rocking against her until she’s moaning softly, her hands raking down my back. “Emma,” she pants, a hint of exasperation in her voice. “Please.”

“Please what?” I grin, pulling back. I really can’t resist teasing her. The way I feel as her eyes narrow lethally is something I will never get sick of.

“Oh, so that’s how it’s going to be, is it?” she says regally. Not sure how she manages to accomplish that when she’s mostly naked, her hair splayed out on the pillow, but she really does. Suddenly I find myself flat on my back, Regina flipping us so she’s straddling me with her stocking-striped legs. “I don’t appreciate being teased,” she says archly. The warm weight of her on my hips is making my body riot with heat.

“Why the hell do you keep me around then?” I ask, smirking.

She glares at me, sliding a hand down my bare chest and dipping her fingers under the waistband of my sweats. I gasp, a choking sound escaping my throat as she slides her fingers between my legs, a triumphant smirk on her face. “Oh my god,” I pant, eyes nearly blurring at the feeling of her fingers dragging across my wet skin. 

“Why  _ do  _ I keep you around?” she muses, adding pressure as she teases me, her hips rocking. “Perhaps because you’re rather funny,” she continues. My hands are clutching at the blankets, the muscles of her thighs, trying to gain some control as she brings me to the edge. “Or perhaps because you’re quite smart,” she adds, her thumb expertly circling my clit. My eyes roll back in my head briefly as I start to make embarrassingly loud noises, writhing underneath her. “It doesn’t hurt that you’re  _ very  _ easy on the eyes,” she adds, leaning down to kiss me messily as she continues to touch me. 

She pulls back, making eye contact with me as she sinks two fingers into me, and now I’m too far gone to care what kind of noises I’m making. She kisses my neck, my face, bites playfully at my earlobe as she continues to fuck me, thumb still dragging across my clit. I feel like I’m coming apart, coming undone. The way she’s touching me, the way she’s looking at me, the feeling of her on top of me and inside of me, her hair dragging against my collarbone, it’s all building until I can’t see straight, until the world blurs around me and my body arches under her touch. I come hard against her hand, gasping for breath, my body trembling with exertion and release. 

Regina slowly removes her hand, still half on top of me, and I wrap my arms around her, holding her tightly as I calm down. “Oh my god,” I say softly into her neck. I feel her smile smugly against me before she lifts her head, watching me. 

“Will you recover, do you think?” she smiles.

“From you?” I ask “Never.” She grins and I flip us over, looking down at her with what I’m sure is a disgusting amount of adoration. 

“Emma,” she says quietly. 

“Mm?” I reply, dragging my fingers up the side of her body.

“I keep you around because I trust you.” My eyebrows shoot up at her honesty. “And because I think you’re quite extraordinary.” She reaches up and cups my face. “And for a number of other reasons, but I think those are quite enough for now.”

“Regina,” I lean down and kiss her softly, running my hands down her body. “I think you’re extraordinary too. And when I’m with you…” I shake my head, toying with her fingers. “It feels like home.” She smiles with a deep kind of satisfaction that makes heat pool in my stomach. “How about I show you just how crazy I am about you?” I offer, raising my eyebrows.

She looks at me with such lust I’m not sure how I don’t burst into flames. “Emma Swan, are you honestly suggesting that we arrive late to your own mother’s party?” She hooks her leg around my back, cinching me against her. “Would you really rather stay in bed and have your way with me than bob for apples and eat cat-shaped confections?”

Needless to say, we’re late to the party.

* * *

“Emma, Regina! There you two are!”

We walk into Granny’s, converted for the occasion into a warm and Halloween-themed venue, complete with pumpkin lights, bat decorations, and a cauldron full of mulled apple cider. A handful of people turn as we enter, some of them the same townspeople that stormed Regina’s office a few days ago. I feel her stiffen next to me and take her hand, squeezing it reassuringly. The story of how we’d both managed to stop the Lich has made the rounds, and she gets a few stiff nods as well as a tentative smile in response. Progress. Snow makes her way through the crowd dressed as - herself. That is, she’s dressed as Snow White from the story - which she is, and engulfs us in a warm hug. 

Henry squeezes his way out from the crowd in a zombie costume, joining in on the hug. “Hey moms,” he grins, looking up at us with way too knowing of a look. 

“Hey kid,” I answer, ruffling his little zombie head. “Mom, come look at the decorations I made,” he says to Regina, tugging her away. Regina throws me a glance over her shoulder before leaving me with Snow. We haven’t really had a chance to talk since dinner the other night and she looks nervous. 

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” she says softly, smiling. 

“Wouldn’t have missed it,” I say reassuringly, even though I kind of almost did.

“Listen, Emma,” she says, grasping my hand. “I just want you to know that I love you so much. You are my first-born, my only daughter. And if I ever made you doubt how much I love you then I am so, so sorry for that. You’ll never know how much.”

Each of her words is like an individual punch to the gut, and I can’t respond because my throat is so tight with emotion I can barely breathe. So instead I pull her against me, in her stupid Snow White dress, and hold her so, so tightly. “I love you too,” I eventually manage to say.

She sniffles and pulls back, beaming. “Ah there you two are,” David interrupts. He pushes his way through the throng, dressed as none other than Prince Charming himself. He’s holding a fat pumpkin that also happens to be my baby brother. “Emma, will you hold the kid while I take your mother for a dance?”

“Of course,” I answer, taking Neal in my arms. He is stupidly cute, I’ll give him that. And now that I’ve let go of my weird baby-jealousy, I actually don’t mind holding him so much. Hitching him on my hip, I make my way through the crowd, waving hello to friends and neighbors. The light is warm with the glow of jack-o-lanterns, and the smell of spiced apples is filling the air. I’m surrounded by friends and family, and for once it actually feels like I belong. Like it’s mine.

My eyes land on Henry and Regina, talking to Gold in a corner. Judging by everyone’s expressions, I’d say he’s finding out he spent the better part of a week living in a Playstation, and Regina’s wicked grin is doing all sorts of things to me. I make my way to them and Regina’s eyes darken, dragging down my body. My mouth goes dry as I think back to the way we spent the better part of the last hour and I am counting the minutes until I can get her back into bed again. To hear her make those sounds again. 

“Hey Henry?” I say, my eyes not leaving Regina’s. “Can you take your uncle for a minute? I want to take your mother for a dance.”

Henry beams, reaching up for Neal. “Sure, Ma,” he says with a grin. I lean down and drop a kiss on his head before reaching a hand out to Regina. She takes it slowly, letting me pull her onto the dance floor. She leads, because of course she does, as we dance to the music, the brim of her witch hat providing us with a surprising amount of privacy. 

“So. Some week, huh?”

“You could say that, Sheriff,” she replies with amusement. The arm around my waist cinches me tighter around her and I swallow heavily. 

“Well I’ve learned my lesson,” I tell her, my voice husky. 

“Oh?”

“Yep,” I nod. “I will never wish for anything exciting to happen again, ever.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Not ever?” Clicking her tongue, she lets her hand slide down my hip, her hand resting dangerously low as she looks up at me. “You know what they say Emma darling,” she says softly, a wicked smirk on her face. 

“Be careful what you wish for.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading.   
> Have a happy hallowe'en and stay safe, each and every one of you.  
> If you have prompts, send them to me here or on tumblr @danger-eux


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